


Portal

by PaxieAmor



Series: Portal'verse [1]
Category: The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Has nothing to do with the video game, M/M, Self-insertion, Some Chapters May Contain Movie Spoilers, You Have Been Warned
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-25
Updated: 2012-06-18
Packaged: 2017-11-04 07:17:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 28
Words: 38,395
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/391211
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PaxieAmor/pseuds/PaxieAmor
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I never thought a portal would bring me here…</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So… if you don’t “Mary Sue” fics, or in this case self-insertion fics, you may want to read this one. Because that’s what this is. This is me working my way through some issues and hopefully not alienating everyone I know. I was going to confine this to the darkest depths of my tumblr, but most of the people on Ao3 have been nice to me so far, so why not?
> 
> Stuff from my real life is going to end up here. Just want to make sure you know that.
> 
> Anyway… enjoy, I guess.

I first saw the movie _Ghostbusters_ when I was about five years old; I walked away from it with a (likely unreasonable) fear of refrigerators that was never quelled with anything beyond “Christ, grow up, it’s a fucking _movie_ ” from my father and looks from my mother that clearly said “Oh, this one’s going to be a bit special, isn’t she?”

Sadly, those two statements, along with my older brother’s smirk of superiority, tend to summarize my entire life. And then there’s the fact that twenty years later, a portal somehow forms in my refrigerator and sends me from my college dorm in Wisconsin to New York City. I’m not sure where the portal came from, as I’m not a scientist and wasn’t experimenting on anything; I opened my mini-fridge to get a Sun Drop and, hey, there’s a portal right there and I’m getting sucked into it.

Yeah. Special. That’s me, alright.

I grew up in New York, have I mentioned that? Not the city; it still annoys the living hell out of me when I say “I’m from New York” and people somehow forget there’s an entire _state_ and not just the four hundred-some square miles near New Jersey, but let’s not go there. No, I grew up in a town that is actually closer to Canada and is so small that there isn’t a proper traffic light. It has two sets of yield lights, but not an actual red-yellow-green traffic light. Point being: suddenly finding myself in one of the biggest cities in the world did more than just mildly freak me out.

Somehow, I’m not freaked out enough to not notice the man on his cell phone, carrying a briefcase, who just moved past me and is walking out into traffic when everyone around him has stopped; nor am I not freaked out enough to notice the car heading straight for him.

Twice in my life, I’ve had what most would call an “out of body” experience. The first was when I was maybe seven years old; my family and I were with my cousins in a local high school swimming pool. My uncle worked at said school, so we were able to get the place to ourselves. I wasn’t in the water much, as the pool didn’t have a shallow end and I couldn’t swim. My cousin, Meredith had asked me to throw her a kick board, which I did. Unfortunately, I somehow threw myself in with it; my feet came out from under me, my head hit the side and I went into the water. It’s the freakiest thing in the world, watching yourself drown from a third person point of view. I didn’t drown, obviously, but I don’t really remember _how_ I didn’t drown. No one ever said who pulled me out, or if they did, it was overshadowed by my father telling me I was stupid.

The second time was today; I watched myself push past a few people with cameras (idiots who were too busy ‘making memories’ to help the man who may get _killed_ ) and run into the street. I heard my own voice yell “Look out!” with an urgency, a _worry_ that I wasn’t aware I was capable of. I saw my hands collide with the man’s shoulders, sending him _flying_ towards the opposite sidewalk, where he landed right on the knees of his very expensive looking pants.

“What the fu—fuck!” I looked to my right; the car was not slowing down. I can see the driver and, wow, does he look pissed off right now. It occurs to me that rather than just saving some random person’s life, I somehow thwarted a _murder_.

Today wasn’t looking like it would get any better for me. My oncoming death was going to be quick and hopefully painless and all I could do was close my eyes and wait for it to happen.

I felt something cold, hard press against me and two arms wrap around me. I was suddenly moving; upward, at an incredible rate of speed. My arms instantly wrapped around whatever was holding me as I buried my face into (what I assume was) its chest, my eyes clenching shut tight and my whole body shaking like there’s no tomorrow.

“It’s alright,” a strange voice says as we slow to a halt. It’s metallic, yet not robotic, like someone speaking through a voice modulator. “Seriously, you just pushed me out of the path of a speeding car, you saved my _life_ and _this_ is what scares you?” I force my eyes open and look the person holding me; my jaw drops.

“…Iron Man?” There’s a chuckle, followed by the face plate opening up.

“Tony Stark,” he replies, a bemused grin on his face. “Nice to meet you, Miss?”

I fainted. My all-time favorite _fictional_ super hero just saved my life after I had somehow saved his; I feel I was completely justified.


	2. Chapter 2

“Seriously, Steve, it was insane! She just, bam! Pushed me and then _stands_ there while the car keeps coming for her, I don’t know how I got into the suit in time to return the whole life saving favor, and then me saving her is what makes her scream like a girl…”

“She _is_ a girl, Tony…”

“And awake,” I muttered, putting a hand to my forehead and rubbing my temples with my thumb and middle finger. “Very much awake… can hear everything your saying, quite loud and clear I might add. Shh…” There was silence for about two seconds.

“Told you I didn’t kill her,” Tony said smugly; I didn’t think it was possible to hear someone rolling their eyes, but that was definitely what I heard coming from the other person in the room.

“Pleasure to meet you, Captain America,” I continued, not taking my hand out of my line of vision as I did so. The room fell quite for longer this time, prompting me to finally look at the two people with me; both looked very, _very_ surprised. “What?”

“How did you know?” Tony asked, eyebrows raised in curiosity.

“You called him Steve; who else would he be?” Oh… oh, that wasn’t a good look from Steve. His eyes narrowed almost instantly and frankly it was pretty scary. “Is… that not public knowledge?”

“ _No_ ,” came the Captain’s defensive reply. I took a deep breath, biting my lip.

“Well… _fuck_. Guess I have some explaining to do.”

"Yes, that's probably a good idea." I looked at my two companions for a moment, trying to gauge just how much they'd be willing to believe from me. After a moment, I remembered one was a super solider from the 1940s and the other was a billionaire-genius-playboy-philanthropist; they could probably believe quite a bit.

"My name’s Paxie," I started carefully. "Well, it's Sarah, really, but no one calls me that anymore... anyway, um..." I sighed. "I'm from a world where you guys are... you're fiction. Comic book characters, though you both have movies now... I opened my fridge this morning and there was a light and then I was here. Feel free to start laughing at any time." Steve and Tony exchanged looks.

“Oddly enough,” Tony replied, “that _isn’t_ the weirdest thing we’ve heard this week.”

“…I’m gonna regret asking, but what is?”

“Thor singing Katy Perry.”

“… _I Kissed a Girl_?”

“Worse, _E.T_.”

“…I was right, I regret asking.” Tony smiled; I liked his smile, it made me feel like I could relax around him.

“You’re saying my life is a _movie_ where you’re from?” I flinched slightly; Cap’s words were in no way pleasant and they gave off the distinct feel of “god help you if you’re lying to me”.

“Yes, Sir,” I replied.

“And we’re just supposed to belie…”

“The last thing you tried to say to her was ‘I’ll try not to step on your feet’. You didn’t get to finish.” That was the absolute worst thing to say and I knew it… but it was the only thing I could think of that would make him believe me. I honestly couldn’t tell if I had made him more or less angry with me.

“They put that in the movie?” he asked slowly. I nodded.

“I cried,” I said softly.

“Just like you are now?” Tony asked. If he hadn’t said anything, I wouldn’t have noticed; I was crying. “What about my movie? Anything make you cry from there?” I nodded.

“The movie your dad left for you.” Tony blinked a few times, clearly surprised. After a moment, he smiled.

“Not just me then? Cool.” More silence. I wiped the tears from my eyes. “So your name is Sarah?” he asked, the tone revealing that he didn’t know what else to say. I nodded.

“Everyone calls me Paxie, or Pax.”

“Why?”

“Why not?” Tony shrugged.

“Name like that, has to be a reason.” I shrugged my shoulders.

“Too many princesses in the world; not enough peace.” Tony was smiling again. I really liked his smile.

“Bit of a smart ass, aren’t you?” I smiled back.

“Smartest part of me.” I sat up better, finally taking a look around; I was in someone’s living room. It was a very nice living room; I wouldn’t mind staying longer. I wasn’t going to. “Well, this has been a lovely meet and greet, but I’m just going to head out if that’s alright with you.”

“No.” Steve’s words were kinder than they had been before; looking at him, I saw that his eyes were softer as well. “Tony got your ID out of your wallet, ran it through the DMV so we could get ahold of your family… you don’t exist here.”

“Oh, well,” I replied, collapsing back down on the couch. “That’s comforting. At least you guys are comic books where I’m from.”

“To be fair,” Tony said, “we haven’t checked the funny papers yet.”

“Your smart-assery knows no bounds, Mr. Stark.”

“Tony, Sarah.”

 “Pax, Tony.”

 “Deal.”

“Anyway,” Steve cut in, rolling his eyes at both of us. “You don’t have anywhere to go, you don’t have any way to pay for anything…”

“I hear prostitution pays well.” I hadn’t been trying to stun Steve Rogers into silence, but the fact I’d done so made me smile. “I think I broke your boy, Tony.”

“How’d you know?” I just smiled; I didn’t have the heart to tell him that Marvel slashes him and Steve harder than the fangirls do.

“Seriously though,” I continued, getting to my feet. The room spun a little bit, but I did my best to ignore it. “That guy was aiming for you, Tony; he looked pretty pissed when I got you out of his way. Seriously, watch your back.”

“That’s what I have you for, isn’t it?” he asked with a grin. “To watch my back?” I laughed.

“You want someone _qualified_ , Tony; not a twenty five year old with absolutely no sense of self preservation.”

“Is that why you saved him?” Steve asked. I blinked a few times.

“Because I have…” I blink again, suddenly realizing what he was getting at. “Oh! You’re asking if I was trying to kill myself!”

“What?” Tony asked, looking at Steve. “That’s… holy shit; that _is_ what you were asking!” Steve shrugged.

“In our short conversation with Miss—”

“If you call me “Miss _Anything_ ’, I will end you, Captain Rogers.” I had no idea how I would manage that, but I was standing by my statement. “I haven’t been called ‘miss’ by anyone over the age of 18 in my entire life and I don’t expect to start now. You can call me Pax, or if you insist upon it, I still respond to Sarah.”

“Alright, Sarah,” he replied and somehow I _knew_ he’d choose my real name. “In our short conversation with you, I’ve established that you are _completely_ …”

“No need to finish that, Sir,” I said, looking down at my feet to make sure I had my shoes (I did) before heading towards the door. “I know what I am, _completely._ ” I giggle, because sometimes giggling is all I can manage when it comes to being uncomfortable about anything. “Pleasure talking with you both; Mr. Stark, try to watch where you’re going.” I gave them both a thumbs up; had I a pair of sunglasses, I would have pulled them down and started blowing kisses because who wouldn’t want to mimic Tony Stark when the man is standing right in front of them.

And I left. I found my way out of what ended up being a penthouse apartment, found my way to an elevator and outside.

“Miss Cornell.” A man in a dark blue dolce suit was standing in front of a black SUV, his arms crossed over his chest, black sunglasses over his eyes. He’s taller than I am. For me, there’s no questioning who he is.

“Agent Coulson,” I reply, taking note of how his face contorts slightly upon my using his name. “I assume you’d like me to come with you?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Please don’t call me ‘ma’am’, Agent Coulson, I’m younger than you are.” I walked over as he opened the door to the SUV, climbing inside.

“I thought you’d put up a fight,” he admits. I shrugged my shoulders.

“I know what happened on the way to Thor’s hammer; the last thing I’m going to do is pick a fight with you.”


	3. Chapter 3

Everyone has their own little nervous quirks; some people twiddle their thumbs, others blow bubbles with their spit, and others still tap their feet. I, personally, tend to sing German hymnals I learned in high school choir.

“Daß er das Land Babel zur Wüsten mache, darinnen niemand wohne, niemand! Niemand! Niemand! Darinnen niemand, neimand wohne!” A slow clap started from the doorway behind me, prompting me to turn in my chair towards the creator. “Don’t ask me to translate, Gotchel never did.”

“Choir teacher?” Agent Coulson asked, taking a seat in the chair across from me. I shrugged my shoulders.

“That’s what they paid her for; though if you weren’t a soprano, you didn’t get much done with you.”

I could hear the bitterness in my own words, remembering the day I stopped being able to hit the high notes, remembering how my voice cracked when I tried… the sheer disappointment in the teacher’s face and the annoyed “Sarah, what happened?” I kept with choir after she’d left; there was another teacher who did work with me more, gave me more chances than Gotchel…

“Got any requests?” I asked, curving my lips into a grin. “I could bust out _Kitty of Coleraine_ if you’d like, or some selections from _Les Miserables_?”

“I’m good.”

“Cutting to the chase, are we?”

“Yes, ma’am.” I cringed.

“Again, with the ma’am, really?” Agent Coulson was no longer wearing his sunglasses, which meant I was fully capable of seeing his ‘I will taze you and watch Supernanny’ look. “I’ll behave. Please don’t taze me and watch Supernanny.”

“You have a lot of knowledge about things you shouldn’t,” Coulson remarked. “I don’t remember you being present when I made that remark to Tony Stark.”

“Speaking of which, couldn’t you just, I don’t know, coordinate with him about this? Because honestly, I don’t want to repeat the whole story, it just makes me sound crazier than I already know I am.”

“You think you’re crazy?”

“Think implies that I have doubts; I know I’m crazy.” I leaned back in my chair. “Look, I could tell you that I’m some sort of clairvoyant, that I can see into your mind and I can make sound all spooky.” I wiggled my fingers for dramatic emphasis. “And maybe I’d have you believing it… right up until I couldn’t answer a question when you needed me too; and if someone got hurt because I didn’t tell you the truth? I’d hate myself mor…” I swallowed my words and started again. “I’d hate myself. So, we have the truth; I’m a 25-year-old nerd from a universe likely parallel to this one who watches a lot of movies, most of which having to do with the Avengers. I know what you told Tony Stark because I went to a midnight premier of _Iron Man 2_ —which, by the way, I almost got thrown out of—and laughed _hysterically_ when you said that. Seriously, almost choked on the soda I was drinking.” There was silence for a few minutes as Coulson scribbled something down on his notepad. “Did you want me to go on?” I asked. “Because I can, I could probably go on for another hour at least…”

“Anyone ever tell you act like Stark?” I grinned.

“I take that as a compliment.”

“My Lord, I knew I liked you.” I turned towards the door, where Tony was standing, smiling.

“Stark,” Coulson said wearily, “what are you doing here?”

“Come on, Coulson,” Tony replied, strolling into the room and taking a seat beside me, putting his feet up on the table. “You kidnapped the girl in front of my building, you didn’t think I’d come rescue her from you and Fury the Dragon?” I pushed his feet off the table, grinning at his mock annoyed glare.

“I don’t want your feet in my face,” I told him.

“I didn’t kidnap her, Stark,” Coulson began, only to be cut off by Tony.

“You most certainly did! There were clear indications that Paxie was in fear for her life!”

“What indications?”

“The fact she said she didn’t want to start a fight with you because of something that happened on the way to Thor’s hammer.” He crossed his arms over his chest, smirking a little. “If that’s not an admission of fear, I don’t know what one is.” I rolled my eyes.

“Or,” I cut in, “perhaps I just know better than to antagonize the man who could kill me with a bag of flour.”

“Okay,” Tony conceded. “There’s that too.” A small grin appeared and vanished so quickly on Agent Coulson’s face that if you blinked, you would have missed it.

“I’m so glad you approve of her, Stark,” he said. “Since you’ll be taking responsibility for her.”

“Wait, what?” Normally the fact that Tony and I had said the same thing at the same time would be cause for epic smiles and smirks, but right now I was too busy being confused.

“We received a call this morning about a trans-dimensional rift…”

“Was if from a Captain Jack Harkness?” I asked, unable to control myself.

“Is he back on the TARDIS?” Tony added. “Or is he trying to break River out of Stormcage?” I grinned, turning my attention to the billionaire.

“Oh man, I would watch the _hell_ out of that show…”

“I know, right?”

“Are you two quite finished?” Coulson asked, obviously trying to refrain from choking the life out of both of us.

“No,” I replied. “But for the sake of time, I would like to put forth the motion that Mr. Stark and myself continue our conversation on all things Whovian at a later date and time.”

“I second this motion,” Tony replied. “All in favor?”

“For the love of _God_ , both of you,” Coulson hissed. “Shut. Up.” I bit my bottom lip to keep myself from laughing, not even daring to look at Tony anymore; if I did, I would completely lose it and likely spend the rest of the day in a puddle of my own drool. “The rift occurred moments before Miss Cornell…”

“You let him call you ‘miss’?” Tony asked.

“Again, death by flour…” Coulson slammed his hand down on the table.

“Moments! Before Miss Cornell saved your ass, Stark, an action of hers that I am regretting. Being that there is no record of her anywhere in this world, it is not unreasonable to believe that she came through this rift and her “crazy” story is likely true.”

“But what does that mean for me?” I asked. “Can you reopen the rift?”

“We…” Coulson hesitated a moment before shaking his head. “No, we can’t. It lasted barely long enough for us to be notified by it, it’s a wonder you made it through unscathed…”

“So, I’m stuck here…” Being stuck here in Avenger-land was a concept that didn’t occur to me; I was in a world where Tony Stark was _real_ , where Captain America was _real_ , why wouldn’t I think that they’d be able to send me home?

“SHIELD already has scientists working on locating the rift,” Coulson assured me, his voice actually sounding sympathetic; that would have been the perfect time to suggest looking over Cardiff, but my heart honestly wasn’t into it. “Until then, Director Fury, for some unknown reason, has decided that the best place for you is with Mr. Stark.”

“And the rest of the Avengers!” Tony said cheerily. I smiled a little at his enthusiasm, but found that I couldn’t return it.

“You’ll also be given a cover story,” Coulson continued, sliding a file over to me. “It’ll be in full effect by the end of the day; anyone who searches for you will see what’s in that file.” I opened the file and skimmed through it. “There are a few details we need to go over, but I assume it’s otherwise acceptable?”

“Have you seen this, Tony?” I asked. He shook his head.

“Not yet, why?” I passed the file over to him and pointed to my newly fabricated birth certificate. It said my name was Sarah _Stark_ ; Tony was listed as my father.

“After your display a moment ago,” Coulson said, a grin curling his lips. “I can’t see any reason why anyone wouldn’t believe that you are a Stark.” To my surprise, Tony nodded his head.

“Yeah, makes sense,” he agreed, turning to me. “You said you were what, twenty five?” I nodded my head.

“Twenty six in October,” I added, not that it made much of a difference.

“So, you were born when I was twenty!” He put his arm around me. “I swear, I would have been there if I’d known.” Most people would have taken offence to his candid remark; I was too busy being surprised that I didn’t flinch at his touch.

While I’m the first person to admit that I’m a hugger, I’m always the one to instigate the hugs. Having someone touch me without warning usually ends badly; just ask my high school Spanish teacher who almost got an elbow to the face when she went to tuck in my shirt tag without warning me. I felt really bad afterwards, but at least she asked after that. I’ve always been like that, save for today. Today, I let Tony Stark put his arm around me; I rested my head on his shoulder and I didn’t flinch at all.

“My life has become a bad fanfic,” I muttered. Tony gave my shoulder a shoulder a squeeze.

“ _My Immortal_ bad or “so bad it’s good” bad?” I looked at him in complete surprise; a moment later, I was laughing hysterically.

“Oh my _god_ , Tony, you would read Potter fic!”

“Only when I can’t find anything decent in the Doctor Who section!” He grinned at me. “Besides, by knowing what I was talking about, you’ve admitted you read Potter fic too!”

“I’ve read _that_ one because it needs to be used as a teaching model of how _not_ to write fanfic!”

“Miss Cornell,” Coulson said. “Or rather, Miss Stark.” I couldn’t help smiling when he said that. “We have other things to do today before I can allow you to leave with… your father.”

“You’re going to milk this for all its worth, aren’t you?” Tony asked him, more amusement than annoyance in his voice. Coulson grinned.

“That would be correct.”

“Alright,” I said, figuring I would stop any further arguments before they started. I got to my feet, stretching a little and running my fingers through my hair. “Let’s do this.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A video of the song used in this chapter can be found [here](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P8l5LVy-ayU).


	4. Chapter 4

Agent Coulson’s definition of “a few details” was quite close to my definition of “autobiography”; he needed to know my middle name, my date of birth, place of birth, where I went to school, where I went to college, what I had a degree in, oh, you’re in college now, what are you majoring in, what classes have you taken so far, you lived on campus, where on campus…

And that was just for SHIELD’s private files. After providing that information, I had to learn all _new_ information. My new life story ran as follows:

My name is Sarah Jane Stark, nee Clarkson; I was born on October 17th, 1986 to Martha Clarkson, who raised me as a single mother in western New York. She never spoke of my father, even when I asked, beyond that they had dated when he was living in New York, but the relationship ended when he returned to California. She never told me his name, nor did she ever tell him about me. She died of leukemia when I was a freshman in college; to this day, I participate in a Relay for Life in her honor (I liked this detail; it was very close to my real life).

I obtained an associate’s degree in liberal arts in 2007, after which I took a few years off to experience the ‘real world’, working various odd jobs; in late 2011, I found myself in New York City, where I applied to be a receptionist at the recently completed StarkTower. After completing the pre-interview testing, which included a background check and voluntary DNA sample, I was called in for an interview. Rather than being interviewed by a member of human services, I found myself meeting with Tony Stark himself. He interviewed me for the position, casually slipping in questions about my past until finally revealing that the DNA sample I had given came back as a match to him; I was her daughter and he would very much like to get to know me.

“Make sure you know that story by heart,” Coulson told me. “Stark will be able to recite it most of the time, but if the press catches you alone, you’ll need to know it.”

“You kept it pretty close to my real life,” I replied. Save for being raised by a single mother, and finding out my father was Tony Stark, everything else was basically true. It would make it easy for me to keep the story straight.

“You won’t be alone with them anyway,” Tony said. “Pepper said I have to take this guardian thing seriously, so I won’t be letting you out of my sight unless we’re at home or… I have to go fight evil.” I wasn’t sure what to say to that; I settled on a smile and a nod, which got me a hair ruffle. In the last four hours, my life had gotten very weird. “Can we go now, Coulson?” Tony’s voice was that of a whiney child, trying to get his parents to leave a family gathering.

“Yes, you can go now,” Coulson said, his voice sounding thankful. “Miss Potts will be taking care of your shopping Miss…”

“If you don’t start using my name, Agent Coulson,” I said, warningly, “Sarah or Pax, I don’t care which, I will make sure that your clearly dry clean only suits are put into a hot water wash and dried even hotter.” While Coulson didn’t seem at all worried by my ‘threat’, he was certainly working it over in his mind.

“Miss Potts will be taking care of your shopping, Sarah,” Coulson said, and hey, it was great to have a win on my side. “I’m to have you text her your sizing information.”

“I don’t have a phone,” I said a little dumbly. “I could get my own clothes.” Not having a phone wasn’t the problem of course; my weight was. I was no longer at my heaviest, which was around 19 stone (which just sounds so much better than 270 pounds, doesn’t it?); I had managed to work my way down to 12 stone (170 pounds, for those interested), but I was still very self-conscious about my weight. The idea of having to tell someone my size, telling a _stranger_ who likely could fit into my clothes at least twice, was sickening and I would be avoiding it at all costs.

“I’ll get you a phone,” Tony said quickly. “And I’m calling Pepper; she’s running my company not a consulting firm for up and coming fashionistas. I’m taking Paxie shopping.” Without another word, he grabbed my hand and pulled me out the door.

“You can’t take me shopping,” I said plainly as we rode an elevator down to the parking garage.

“Why not?” he asked, not looking away from his phone; texting Pepper, probably.

“I’m allergic to expensive clothes; anything costing more than twenty bucks makes me break out in hives.” I thought about this for a moment as Tony stared at me, dumbfounded. “Except sneakers; I’ll pay more for a good pair of sneakers.”

“You’re kidding me right?”

“Not at all; I don’t spend a lot on clothes.”

“You wouldn’t be spending it, Pax, _I_ would…”

“Doesn’t matter. You’re better off dropping me at a Walmart or Salvation Army for a few hours and picking me up when I‘m done.”

“Why?” I shrugged my shoulders, putting my hands in my pockets.

“Just how I am.” He considered this for a moment before speaking.

“Grew up poor?”

“Yeah.” I wasn’t going to be the one to explain what it was like to grow up living just above the poverty line to Tony Stark. I didn’t want to tell him what it was like, having it be normal to come home from school to find the electricity or the gas turned off because your parents couldn’t (or in some cases, just _didn’t_ ) pay the bills and as a result, you were showering with a flashlight and sharing a bed with your siblings to keep warm; how clothes bought at the beginning of the school year were expected to last until the next school year, if not longer; that dinners made on Monday were often expected to last until Wednesday, sometimes Thursday or Friday and were always the cheapest meat at the store with potatoes; how you would ask your friends if they were going to finish their terrible school made lunch after you’d already eaten the one you got for free, because you wouldn’t get much at dinner only have them remind you again that you needed to work on your weight, not knowing about your medical condition…

And I didn’t realize that I’d said all of that out loud until I heard Tony’s voice, soft and sad ask me “Is that what it’s like?” I took a deep breath, resting my back against the wall of the elevator.

“For me, yeah,” I admitted. “I mean, it was no picnic, but there were definitely people worse off… I was never homeless… okay, that’s a lie, I was homeless for like a week, but that was different, there was fire involved, but…” I shrugged my shoulders. “I know it could have been better, you know? My father and his wife could have used the money they spent on booze and cigarettes and Thursday nights at the bar on bills or food or I could have gone to live with my mother and brother…” I threw my hands in the air, shaking my head. “But I didn’t. _They_ didn’t. And I can’t change it now. And I’m sorry to lay it all on you, Tony, I didn’t mean…”

He hugged me; again, I didn’t flinch. This time, I even hugged him back.

“God,” I said, “right now I would like _nothing_ more than to yell ‘psych’ or something, but you’ve been so nice to me for no fucking reason… I just wouldn’t do that to you. Not after that.”

“You don’t talk about this a lot, do you?” It was a simple enough question, yet I was unable to make to words to answer it; I just shook my head. “You can though, you know? Talk about it. With me, if you need to.” I nodded. “Good, that’s… that’s good.” We pulled apart just as the elevator doors opened. Tony straightened his suit, I quickly wiped my eyes. “You good?” I nodded.

“Yeah, I’m good…” We walked towards his limousine, which was parked only a few feet away; Happy Hogan was there, waiting to usher us inside.

“Happy!” Tony said with a smile. “We’re going to the mall!”

“Yes, Mr. Stark,” the man replied with a grin. “Miss Potts has informed me that she’ll be meeting you and Miss Stark at Macy’s and that, no, you don’t have a choice in the matter.”

“Spoilsport,” Tony said, sticking is tongue out at Happy.

“I’m just going to have to get used to the “miss” thing, aren’t I?” I asked, smiling a little.

“Most likely,” Tony replied. “I stopped trying about twenty years ago…”

“To get people to stop calling you ‘miss’?”

“Yeah… hey, wait!” If Happy had started laughing any harder, he probably would have ruptured something. “You’re fired,” Tony pouted.

“And now you’re re-hired,” I replied with a grin. “Except you work for me now.”

“Yes, Miss Stark,” Happy replied cheerily, obviously enjoying the stunned expression on Tony’s face. “Where to, Miss?”

“Macy’s, please Happy. I have an appointment with Miss Potts.” I climbed into the car after Tony, worried that maybe I’d actually managed to offend him; much to my relief, he was smiling. “I won’t tell, by the way,” I said, after we’d been sitting in silence for a few minutes. “Your secret’s safe with me.”

“What secret?” Tony asked, cocking an eyebrow at me.

“That underneath that genius-billionaire-playboy-philanthropist mask lies a downright decent human being and an overall good man.” Tony chuckled a little, shaking his head.

“You’re my ‘daughter’; you have to say stuff like that.” I looked at him, sporting the most serious expression I could.

“Then you should know, ‘dad’, that I never say _anything_ because I “have” to; I’ll say things because I want to, because I need to, because nobody else will say it if I don’t, but I never say anything because I have to.” Tony just stared at me for a moment.

“You must get that from me.” I smiled.

My life was definitely fanfic now, but just maybe it wasn’t a bad one.

“What are you thinking about?” It was about ten minutes later when Tony asked me that; we were stuck in traffic and Tony was so busy playing around on his tablet that I didn’t think he’d noticed that I, being that I had no cool toys to play with, was staring through the window, off into space.

“Nothing,” I replied, shrugging my shoulders.

“Oh, come on!” Tony said, grinning at me. “You just told me about your childhood without me really asking, it can’t be much harder to tell me what you’re thinking right now.”

“You’ve got to _promise_ not to laugh.”

“I promise to do my _best_ not to laugh.” I took a deep breath.

“…I don’t remember. No, no, don’t look at me with those eyes!” I was pointing a finger at him and his eyes, which were clearly saying that I was full of it. “I know I was thinking about _something_ , most likely a lot of something’s because there’s times when I know my head is jumping around from topic to topic and song to song and so on, but the moment you asked…” I mimed an explosion with my hands. “Poof! Gone.”

“Song to song?” Tony asked, a hint of intrigue in his voice.

“Yeah, I…” I rubbed the back of my head, ruffling my hair a little. “I hear songs in my head like you’d hear them on the radio; my first boss said I dance to the music inside of my head.”

“Nice… hey, we’re here!” I looked out his window, feeling my face turn pale almost instantly.

“That’s…” I swallowed. “That’s a lot of cameras out there.” Tony looked as though he had just noticed the swarm of photographers.

“Huh…” he said, pursing his lips slightly. “I wouldn’t have thought they’d have jumped on the story this soon.”

“Tony, I pushed you out of the way of an oncoming car this morning and then you turned right around and saved me from the same car.” He thought about that for a second.

“True.” He looked at me. “Oh shit, you’re not ready for this, are you?”

“Not particularly, no…” He smiled a little before grabbing my right hand with his own, giving it a squeeze.

“Don’t let go.” Before I could reply, the limo had slowed to a stop and he was pulling me out. It was awkward at first, but then he moved so his right arm was across his chest so he could keep ahold of my right hand; his left arm went around my shoulders and he hugged me close to him as we sprinted inside.

For the first time since I don’t remember when, I felt _safe_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This update comes with art!  
>   
> I made it myself, so admittedly, it's not very good art. I just really liked that part and decided to draw it.


	5. Chapter 5

“Gotta say,” Tony remarked once we were finally inside and away from all the cameras. “I’m kind of liking having someone shorter than me around.”

“Yeah, well,” I replied, rolling my eyes. “You’ll always be ‘Tiny Tony’ in my head.” He shuddered, shaking his head.

“Oh god, please don’t call me that in public?”

“What am I supposed to call you, anyway?” I grinned, a bit wickedly. “Daddykins? Pappy Tony? Or maybe…”

“Tony works! Tony works just fine!” He looked around for Pepper. “Or, you know, Dad… if you want.”

“I’d like that.” I didn’t expect those words to come out of my mouth, nor did I expect to mean them so much. How long had it been since I’d called someone Dad because I wanted to, rather than because… well, that’s who the person was? I occasionally called my stepfather Dad, but for the most part he was my Fred. It was like Fred had more meaning to it than Dad did…

“Whoa, that is an angry face.” Tony still had an arm around my shoulders, which he used to pull me away from the angry redhead walking towards us. “Pepper, I swear, whatever it is, I didn’t do it…”

“I’m not angry at _you_ , Tony,” she said, rolling her eyes. “I’m angry at the Doom Bots attacking central park, you…”

“I have to go!” Tony gave me a quick hug. “I have to go, stay with Pepper, she’ll get you back to the mansion safely, crap, where’s Happy , I…”

“You left your briefcase in the car, Mr. Stark,” Happy said as he sprinted over to us, holding the case out to Tony.

“You’re no longer fired, Hogan,” Tony said as he took the case.

“You can’t rehire me, Mr. Stark, Miss Stark has already done so.”

“What?” Pepper asked, looking at me.

“We’ll definitely have stuff to talk about while Dad’s gone,” I assured her. Tony grinned, kissed Pepper’s cheek and ran off. I smiled after him, hoping it was hiding the fear I felt; this wasn’t a movie anymore, I couldn’t claim that Tony wouldn’t get killed because he’s the main character… I would honestly be worrying about him until he got back.

“You never get used to it,” Pepper said suddenly, prompting me to look at her. “Seeing him run off to save the world. You’ll always be worried that he’ll come back hurt, or not at all…”

“That’s okay, though,” I replied, still smiling a little. “I’d rather have someone to worry about than have no one at all.” Pepper smiled, nodding a little. “I’m Paxie, by the way… or Sarah, everyone but Tony seems to use Sarah.”

“Yes, I know who you are, Miss Stark…”

“Oh man, are you going to call me that too?”

“Only when it’s work related; I still call Tony “Mr. Stark” when we’re working.”

“But we’re not working right now,” I protested. “We’re shopping!” Pepper shook her head.

“I can’t argue there.” Pepper and I spent the next few hours in Macy’s; the first thing she tried to do was talk me into wearing a skirt.

“I don’t wear skirts,” I said with conviction. “Not unless there’s a wedding or a funeral and I actually like the people who the wedding or funeral is for.” She raised an eyebrow.

“Out of curiosity,” she began, “and I’m going to regret asking this, what do you do at funerals for people you don’t like?”

“Send lesbian strippers.” I smiled; I was saving that particular plan for my biological father’s funeral, with instructions that his wife was to get the best lap dance possible and someone would have to put the video on YouTube. Pepper didn’t seem as amused by it as I was.

“Alright then… why don’t you put an outfit together? Something you could wear to work…”

“I have a job?”

“Tony didn’t tell you?” she asked; I shook my head. “Congratulations, you have my old job.” I buried my face into my palm; again, bad fanfic. I didn’t reply, just headed over the women’s section and picked out an outfit; black slacks, matching jacket, and t-shirt sporting Captain America’s shield.

“There,” I said after I had put the outfit on in a dressing room. I model walked over to Pepper and did a little catwalk turn, which was surprisingly easy in my old pair of red Chuck’s. “This will work, won’t it?”

“You really are his kid,” Pepper replied with a smile. “I don’t care…” She stopped herself, in case someone else was listening, but I knew what she meant; ‘I don’t care who you really are’.

“So, this’ll work?” I asked hopefully.

“Yes, it will work for the office, but you’re going to need something for events…”

“And I promise, I will let you use me as your own personal Barbie doll when that time comes, but do we honestly have to look at dresses now?”

“Unless you can talk Tony out of having a huge welcome party for you…”

“Oh, I will be talking him out of this,” I assured her. “Come on, I think they had some Iron Man shirts over where I found this one!”

By the end of the trip, I had at least one shirt for each member of the Avengers—my inner (and outer) fangirl was squealing like crazy—as well as pants, undergarments and anything else I could need. I did my best not to look at the price tags on anything, nor to look at the cash register as everything was being rung up. If I knew how much it all cost, I would have put all of it back, as I’ve done on many occasions.

“Is there anything else you need?” Pepper asked as we walked towards the parking garage with all my new clothes.

“No,” I replied, shaking my head. “Nothing that I need, really…”

“What about something you want?” I hesitated. “Come on, with everything you’re going though, you deserve a few things you just _want_ , for whatever reason.” She smiled. “What is it?”

“If you’re asking…”

“I am.”

“…I’d really like a set of crochet hooks. And some yarn. Please.” Pepper smiled.

“You crochet?”

“Since I was a kid,” I replied with a nod. “My great grandmother taught me… I actually made a little Iron Man doll once.”

“Don’t tell Tony that,” Pepper warned. “He’ll want one.”

“We should probably get some red and gold yarn then. Just to be safe.” By this time, Happy had walked over to us and took the bags we were carrying. Pepper pulled out her phone, probably to find a nearby craft store…

And that’s when the limo blew up. Thankfully when we were nowhere near it.

“TARGET ACQUIRED!” The three of us turned towards the voice.

“Is that what I think it is?” I asked, utterly failing to conceal the nervous tone in my voice.

“It’s a Doom Bot!” Happy replied, taking Pepper by the arm and pulling her behind a nearby car. I didn’t move. “Miss Stark!”

“It’s not moving!” I yelled. The robot—which, sadly, looked a lot like the Destroyer Droids from the _Star Wars_ prequels, except it was _flying_ —didn’t follow Happy or Pepper, never wavered its aim. “The target is me!”

“Miss Stark, we need to get out of here!” Pepper and Happy were to my left.

“Alright then.” I ran to my right. I am an _idiot_.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So much love to everyone reading this fic. Seriously, I adore you all ^_^

I’ve never been much of a runner; I played basketball in high school, but being that I was a bigger girl, I was a defender. I still feel bad about the girl I accidentally threw over my shoulder when I was trying to get the ball away from her. Point being, I’m not a runner, yet here I am running for my fucking life.

Hey, whoever’s writing my fanfic life? **KNOCK THIS SHIT OFF**.

I somehow made it to the stairwell without anything bad happening, save for Pepper using some very creative curse words that were directed at me. The bot, however, never fired a shot in my direction and that told me something very important: it’s goal was to capture, not kill.

A lot of good that bit of information did me; I was still trying to run for my life.

While it would have been the easier way, going down meant leading the thing towards innocent people, which I couldn’t bring myself to do; I would never be able to yell at movies or TV shows again without feeling like a hypocrite. That wasn’t the main issue right now; right now, I needed music. I needed something to help me keep a pace, something to get my legs moving up the five or six flights of stairs to the roof. I was about ninety percent sure that Pepper would already be on the phone with Tony, letting him know that his pseudo-daughter was an idiot and was going to get herself _killed_ … and he would come. He or one of the Avengers would come to help. Once I got to the roof, I just had to keep away from the robot until help arrived.

It was going to be the most extreme game of Hide-and-Seek _ever_.

I started up the stairs, going quickly through my mental playlist; I skipped over Poison, blew past Ozzy, paused for a moment on Maiden before getting to the track I needed.

_If you like to gamble, I tell you I'm your man_

_You win some, lose some, it's still the same to me_

I let Lemmy fill my skull as I made my way up the stairs, trying not to think about how completely out of breath I would be when I finally reached the top. I started taking the stairs two at a time, then three. I had to keep going, anything to get the thing away from the general public. I couldn’t hear the robot chasing after me; I fully expected it to be waiting for me when I rushed out onto the roof, so much so that I hesitated a moment before pushing open the door. Did the roof really make sense? Would it be better to turn around and run back down towards the ground?

A small blast went right past my head, blowing the door off its hinges; clearly that thing wasn’t playing around anymore.

_The pleasure is to play, it makes no difference what you say_

_I don't share your greed, the only card I need is the Ace of Spades_

_The Ace of Spades_

I ran out to the roof and found that there were next to no cars parked up there; I found the biggest SUV I could find and crouched down behind it. My heart was racing, the beats echoing throughout my head, almost drowning out Lemmy’s voice. I concentrated on him, on slowing my breathing, on how long I had until I would need to get up and run again.

“TARGET ACQUIRED!” I looked up; the bot was hovering over me. I blinked; my song changed.

_Miss a beat, you lose a rhythm_

_And nothin' falls into place, no_

The Doom Bot moved closer, one of its arms stretching out towards me as I closed my eyes. The game was over; I lost.

_Only missed by a fraction_

_Slipped a little off your pace_

“Sarah, stay down!” My eyes shot open just in time to see Captain America slice through the robot with his shield, the head landing at my feet with a clang. I stared at it for a moment before looking up at him.

“Hi, Cap!” He smiled at me, taking me by the hand and pulling me to my feet. “What happened to staying down?” He rolled his eyes.

“Smart ass.”

“We’ve had this conversation… look out!” Cap turned around just in time to get his shield up, blocking a blast from a second Doom Bot; there were more not far behind. “Where the hell are these things coming from?”

“Run!” he yelled, swinging his shield at the bot. “Get out of here, now!”

“Are you kidding me?!” I cried. “The safest place in New York right now is _right behind you_!”

“Go!”

“Fucking _damn it_!” I’m pretty sure Cap said something about my language, but I was too busy getting my heart rate back up to pay attention. The bots were coming in from the right and I darted to left. As I was running I felt something explode near my foot, sending gravel flying into my leg. I let out a yell, staggering a little as I tried to maintain my balance and not fall flat on my face; I ended up turning my ankle, letting out another (louder) yell. Oh, this was a familiar pain, though it was one that I hadn’t felt in years. It brought back memories of high school gym classes, falling down the stairs, oh god you’re fine Sarah, we don’t need to take you anywhere…

_Playing for the high one, dancing with the devil,_

_Going with the flow, it's all a game to me_

Good, Lemmy was back. Not that I didn’t like Van Hagar/Halen, I never had a song in my head that I didn’t like to some degree (which explained my I occasionally heard _Tattoo_ ; I hated the lyrics, but loved the melody), but I needed to run. _Right Now_ was not good running music. My ankle was going to be a lovely bruised rainbow in an hour or two, and putting pressure on it was going to be a _bitch_.

_Seven or Eleven, snake eyes watching you_

_Double up or quit, double stake or split, it's the Ace of Spades_

But, hey, we’ve already established that I’m an idiot.

I was less running, more limping as quickly possible. How these things hadn’t grabbed me yet was beyond me; maybe I wasn’t a real target, just a distraction. Honestly, I wasn’t sure which scenario I liked least, but I was trying not to think about that right now. Focus on Lemmy, on the Ace of Spades… on the sudden stop I have to make, because I’m at the edge of the roof and have nowhere else to run. I turned to run the other way, only to find that there were more bots coming towards me.

I was surrounded; the only way I could go was backwards, which meant going off the roof if I went too far. I looked over my shoulder, feeling my stomach turn as I realized just how high up I was. I was about two seconds away from living every nightmare I’d ever had as a child, falling endlessly, not knowing when or even if I’d stop.

_Might as well jump_

_Jump_

_Go ahead and jump_

My subconscious was a sadistic son of a bitch and, unfortunately, it was right. __

_You know I'm born to lose, and gambling's for fools_

_But that's the way I like it baby_

I took another step back, falling when my foot had nothing to land on.

_I don’t wanna live forever_

Sometimes when you’re scared, you don’t notice everything that you see. Something that might be clear as day normally will be a blip in the corner of your eye; you’ve seen that it’s there, but you’re not completely aware of it. That’s why I was surprised as hell to end up on a fire escape landing barely ten feet down from where I’d stepped off. I managed to land on my already throbbing ankle, holding back a full scream. It’s nice to know that little tricks you learn as a kid, such as how to be hurt and never let anyone know, can be useful in a world of super heroes and giant robots. Using my uninjured leg, I pushed myself close to the wall, doing my best to melt against it and make myself as small as possible. If I was lucky, _incredibly_ lucky, the bots wouldn’t notice me, fly right past and look for my broken body on the ground below.

“HULK SMASH!” Or, they could all get destroyed by the giant green rage monster that just leapt overhead, that works. That _more_ than works. I could hear explosions above me, people shouting, _screaming_ … I covered my head with my hands and waited for everything to stop. When the sounds of battle finally stopped, after what seemed like forever, the first voice I heard was Iron Man’s.

“Where is she?! What happened?!”

“She jumped!” Cap yelled. “They had her surrounded, she… oh my god, she jumped.” His voice was cracked, dazed. Worried. He was worried about me.

“Iron Man!” I yelled, praying my voice was loud enough to break over the sounds of the city around us. “Captain! I’m here!” There was no response. I could hear the Captain talking with Iron Man—no, it was Tony now, the metallic tone was gone—telling him everything that had happened. I drew a deep breath, getting ready to shout again, only to let it out in a surprised yelp when someone landed next to me. It was a man, a bit taller than me; holding a bow, brown hair, blue eyes, purple highlights on his black uniform. “Hello, Agent Barton.”

“Hey there, Kiddo,” he said, grinning a little. “You alright?”

“You’re not seriously calling me kiddo,” I said. “I’m not that much younger than you.”

“Kiddo, the only people you’re _not_ younger than are Darcy and technically Steve.” Before I could reply (it probably would have been something classic, like “whatever, old man”), he put a hand to his ear and started talking. “Guys, it’s Hawkeye; I found Kiddo.”

“You’re killing me with the kiddo.”

“Yeah, we’re… hang on a sec.” He pulled an arrow out of his quiver, nocked it and fired straight into the air; ten seconds later, a small flare exploded over our location.

“They’re just on the other side of the roof, right?” I asked.

“Yeah,” Hawkeye replied with a shrug. “I just never get to use those arrows.”

“Fair enough.” Tony landed next to Hawkeye a second later. His faceplate was up; he looked worried.

“Paxie, are you alright?” I opened my mouth to answer, but he kept talking. “Jesus _Christ_ , what were you thinking?” Opened my mouth again; he still kept talking, but he looked angry now. “Running away from Pepper and Happy like that, you could have gotten yourself killed! And then this! You _jumped off a building_ , Paxie, how fucking stupid are you?!” My expression must have changed, because his did; it went from angry to ashamed. “Paxie, I…”

“Just as stupid as you think I am, Sir,” I replied. I looked at Clint. “I hurt my ankle, I should probably go see a doctor.” Barton nodded once, then picked me up and slung me over his shoulder as he carried me up the ladder to the roof.

Tony didn’t follow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Songs used in this chapter:
> 
> [Ace of Spaces](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vqtNGkSzh1o) \-- Motorhead  
> [Right Now](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rMV-fenGP1g) \-- Van Halen  
> [Jump](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wlq0lYB3iSM) \-- Van Halen


	7. Chapter 7

It’s one thing to call yourself an idiot; it’s your given right as the owner of your brain to acknowledge that you do some pretty idiotic things once in a while. Along the same line, it’s _generally_ okay for someone else to call you an idiot, provided it’s done in a tone of voice that clearly states “I don’t actually believe that you’re an idiot, but you just did something really dumb and I’m getting a laugh out of it”.

It’s a completely different thing altogether for someone else to call you _stupid_ , because no matter how it’s said, some people have trouble not taking the word negatively.

I’m one of them.

The first time I really remember being called stupid, it was done by my mother and brother after we went to go see “A Bug’s Life” in the local cinema. It was at the part where they were using the giant fake bird to scare off the grasshoppers, and you could clearly see that there was a vine or something holding the bird up. I later remarked that you could tell that the bird was fake; before I could finish with “because you could see the string”, they started laughing, both stating I was stupid, because “it’s a cartoon, of course it’s not real”.

My father’s called me stupid more times than I can count, so let’s just move on from there, shall we?

I hadn’t broken my ankle in the incident with the Doom Bots, but I had ended up with a lateral sprain. Again, this was something I was used to. What I wasn’t used to was all the care I was getting from the doctor on duty.

“Is this really necessary?” I asked. The doctor, a nice woman who’s nametag read “Garrison” gave me a curious look.

“Miss Stark,” she said, continuing to wrap gauze around my swollen ankle. “You have a pretty bad sprain here…”

“I’ve had them before; just slap some bag balm on it, throw over an old sock and I’ll stay off it for tonight. I’ll be walking on it tomorrow.” Her jaw dropped. “What?”

“Is that all you’ve ever done? Bag balm?” I nodded.

“Used my stepmother’s air cast once or twice.”

“No crutches?”

“Why would there be crutches?” The doctor face palmed. “What?”

“It’s a _wonder_ your ankle isn’t broken.” When Agent Coulson came to pick me up an hour later, my right foot was strapped into a large boot and I was given a pair of crutches. He was informed that I was, under no circumstances, to be walking around without either for at least a week. Coulson agreed to this and I knew I was doomed.

“Do we know why they came after me?” I asked as Coulson sat me down in his office. “Was it a fluke or did I _really_ manage to piss off Doctor Doom in less than eight hours?”

“You did,” Coulson replied with a slight grin. “Congratulations, that’s a SHIELD record.”

“What did I _do_?”

“You saved Tony’s life this morning; Doom decided that a direct approach was best.” I thought for a moment.

“I can understand it in the ‘it’s so simple, how can it not work’ sense… but come on, really?”

“Yeah. Really.” He set a cup of hot tea down in front of me, which took a sip from instantly; it was prepared just the way I liked it, two sugars and no milk. I had no idea how he did that. “From what we can tell, Doom wanted to use you as bait for Tony and the rest of the Avengers. We were expecting something like this to happen eventually…” I nodded; I was now Tony Stark’s daughter, people might try to use me against him. “We’ll be ready for it from now on. If you’re ready, I can have someone take you to the mansion so you can rest up.”

“Can I stay here?” I could see that my question surprised him, despite the fact he tried to hide it. “I don’t think I’m ready,” I continued. “For the spotlight and everything… and I’m injured, it might be best if I laid low for a while.”

“You can lay low at the mansion.”

“I’d rather do it here.” He raised an eyebrow.

“Did you and Stark have a fight, kiddo?” I groaned.

“Christ, is everyone calling me that now?”

“It’s pretty much your code name now.” I let out another groan. “It makes sense; you are the youngest one here.”

“Darcy…”

“Is in New Mexico.”

“Captain Rogers…”

“Despite his looks, is old enough to be your grandfather.”

“No other agents…”

“Minimum age for SHIELD employment is twenty-nine.”

“Not thirty?” I asked.

“We like odd numbers,” Coulson replied.

“Not the only odd thing you people like.”

“Clearly not, kiddo.” I opened my mouth to protest, but instead sighed, shaking my head.

“Alright then,” I consented. “I’m kiddo.”

“You’re skirting the question,” Phil stated. “Did you and Stark get into a fight?”

“No.” It wasn’t a lie, no really. He hadn’t gotten into a fight; I just couldn’t face him at the moment. For some strange reason, none of the times my family had called me stupid hurt as much as hearing it from Tony Stark. Coulson didn’t look convinced, but he nodded.

“I’ll take care of it.”

I took up residence in Captain Rogers’ old quarters; a one room studio-esk apartment in the basement of SHIELD HQ. It was a nice enough place and came with a twin sized bed, kitchenette (complete with stocked fridge and a microwave/pizza oven) and bathroom. There was a television on the wall  above a small desk and chair, and the clothes Pepper (and Tony, I guess) had bought for me were in the closet. There was also a bag containing yarn, a pattern book and a small cloth case that held crochet hooks, a pair of scissors and a couple darning needles.

I moved in three weeks ago and managed to make at least nine pairs of socks in that time.

Thankfully, there were rarely any reasons for me to leave the apartment, so it was easy for me to keep off my foot; occasionally, Coulson (who, after a while, told me I could call him Phil) would need me to answer a few questions about how I’d gotten here and keep me up to date with what was happening in the outside world; by the end of the first week, it had hit the press that I was the daughter of Tony Stark, but being that I was recovering from my injury, no one would be getting an interview any time soon.

Once there was a blood drive and I’m an O positive so I made Phil take me to that. Otherwise, I crocheted, watched the Science Channel and VH1 Classic, and I… existed. It wasn’t really living, but it was all I felt like doing. The only person who came to see me was Phil, and those visits were sporadic.

Tony didn’t come visit me. I really didn’t expect him to.

And then there was the fact that I sometimes don’t sleep. It’s not that I _can’t_ sleep, or I need to finish something before I can sleep, I just plain won’t. I’ll catch up on it the next day, take a couple short naps, but sometimes I don’t sleep.

This is why, three weeks into living at SHIELD, I was heading down to the firing range at 3am.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter contains archery, which I only have a very basic knowledge of. You have been warned :D

At the beginning of my second week at SHIELD, I had asked Phil if he could have someone leave a bow out for me; it needed to be something that could be used by an amateur, with relatively low required pull strength. I would also need a few arrows (no broad heads, please), a release, an arm guard and for no one to know it was me that asked. The morning after, he handed me an envelope with a pass card for the firing range, which would also open a storage locker with everything I’d need inside and told me I could use it at any time, day or night, as long as I didn’t do any more injury to my ankle. Now, at the end of the third week, I was going to take him up on it.

I left my crutches in my room, but kept the boot on as I made my way down to the firing range. SHIELD HQ was freaking creepy at night, but I took my time in walking down to the range; the swelling had gone down on my ankle, but it was still sore. No reason to put unneeded pressure on it by rushing when there was no need to.

Phil said that my locker was the third from the far end, but if I had any doubts, it would be the only locker my pass card would open. I found the locker and couldn’t help cracking a smile. The name on the locker was Smith; clearly Phil was a closet Whovian.

It was a nice bow, I guess. I’m not an expert or anything, but I knew it was a compound and it would, in theory, be easy enough for me to fire. How long had it been since I’d fired one of these? Junior high, high school? Maybe college, but I doubted it. I moved to a station at the end of the range, making sure my arm guard was secure before I got started. I was even wearing goggles over my glasses; they were in the locker, clearly someone thought I should use them. I nocked my first arrow, clipped the trigger release onto the string and pulled back; it took some effort, but I finally got it done.

“Use the fletching like a sight, pumpkin,” I could hear my father telling me. “Look down the arrow and let it go…” I closed my eyes—I always closed my eyes—and I let the arrow fly.

“Nice shot, kiddo.” I opened my eyes; the arrow, much to my surprise, had actually hit the target, sticking out of the bottom-right corner. “I was wondering if you’d ever come down, after I got everything around for you.”

“Thank you, Agent Barton,” I replied honestly. “I do appreciate it.”

“You can call me Clint, you know.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.” I nocked another arrow, pulled back and fired. I kept my eyes open this time, managing to hit closer to the bottom-middle.

“Where’d you learn to shoot?” Clint asked. I hesitated a moment before shrugging my shoulders.

“My father, kind of…”

“Not Stark, the other one?” I nodded; Clint apparently knew I wasn’t really Tony’s kid, which made things easier. I didn’t have to worry about what I could and couldn’t tell him. “What do you mean, ‘kind of’?” I sighed, shaking my head as I nocked a third arrow.

“I tried to teach myself,” I said before letting the arrow fly; still hitting the target, nowhere close to a bull’s eye. “Eight years old, wanting so badly for him to do something with me, I grabbed my brother’s old training bow and arrows and went out to the backyard. He was a hunter, so we had this life sized foam deer target, it probably cost more than my father’s _truck_.” Another arrow; another hit on the target, close to where my first had landed. “I was out there by myself for an hour before I finally hit the target.” I smiled a little. “I was so happy, I’d somehow hit the neck and before that I’d been coming up short or shooting over… and he came out and told me “good job” and we stayed out there for another hour or so… and that’s probably one of the last good memories I have of him.” I fired another arrow, somehow managing to hit the outer ring of the target. “Didn’t really keep up with it after that; my parents got divorced, I lived with my mother for about a year and she didn’t hunt… when I did move back with him, he was remarried and…” I set the bow down on the table in front of me, removing the arm guard. “And I don’t want to talk about this anymore…”

“I’m sorry,” Clint said. “We don’t have to talk about anything, you don’t have to stop…” I shook my head, gathered my arrows and put everything back in Smith’s locker. “He really hurt you…”

“More than you know,” I replied; I hated that I said that, as I meant it when I said that I didn’t want to talk about it anymore. “Thanks for the bow and stuff, Agent Barton, really…”

Before I was aware he’d even moved, I felt his arms wrap around me, holding me tight. He didn’t say anything for a while, not until I found myself returning his embrace.

“People like that aren’t worth it, Kiddo,” he told me. “You can’t let them ruin you for the rest of the world.” I chuckled, shaking my head.

“Agent Barton…”

“ _Clint_.”

“Clint,” I agreed. “I was born ruined…”

“Now I don’t believe that at all.” Clint and I turned towards the new voice that had joined us; Tony was standing in the doorway, hands in his pockets, leaning against the frame. “I think you’re pretty damn awesome and some jackass gave you reasons to think otherwise.”

“Like you, Stark?” Clint asked as he let go of me, his voice more than a little annoyed; I had a feeling the two exchanged words following that day on the fire escape.

“Exactly,” Tony replied, strolling towards us. “Except, unlike anyone else, I know I was wrong and I know _why_ I was wrong and I’ve been trying to apologize…” He took one of his hands out of his pockets and held a small black cell phone out to me, which I took. “I just forgot that I didn’t actually _give_ that to you, so you wouldn’t be receiving my calls or texts…”

“You couldn’t have come here and talk to her?”

“Coulson banned me from the building…”

“You _own_ the building!” I ignored the two of them, playing with the phone until I brought up the text message inbox, which contained over two hundred messages, all from Tony. Most of them were variations of “I’m sorry”, but there were a few that were more than that.

_I shouldn’t have called you stupid. I’m sorry. -TS_

_Are you doing okay at SHIELD? Are they trying to test stuff on you? –TS_

_I didn’t mean that you were stupid. Crazy is more the word. I mean, come on, who else would run upstairs just to keep a raging death bot away from other people rather than running somewhere to save themself? –TS_

_You’re my kind of crazy, though. You really are. –TS_

_Do people tell you that a lot? –TS_

_That you’re stupid, I mean. -TS_

_Doctor Who is on. “The Doctor’s Wife.” I like this episode. -TS_

_The look on your face when I said you were stupid… I didn’t like that face, Paxie. -TS_

_Whoever told you that shouldn’t have–TS_

_Because you’re not. You’re really not, Paxie. –TS_

_I built you a robot. Steve said I’m crazy. –TS_

_I wish you’d answer me. –TS_

_…I never actually gave you the phone, did I? Huh. Wonder if I can sneak into SHIELD right now? –TS_

_I hope you’ll talk to me. –TS_

I wrapped my arms around Tony’s waist and hugged him tight. He staggered back a couple steps, apparently from the force of my embrace, before hugging me back.

“I’m sorry, Paxie,” he said softly, smoothing my hair down a little. “I’m really, really sorry.”

My father had told me once that he was sorry for making me miserable, really, really sorry. With his track record, I shouldn’t have believed him, but I had no reason not to believe Tony Stark.

“Ready to come home?” he asked, a hopeful tone in his voice.

“Tony, it’s after three in the morning,” I replied. “The only place I’m going right now is to bed.”

“But the beds are more comfortable at the mansion!”

“Leaving me here one more night won’t kill you.”

“Wanna bet… oh, hey, what’s that?” He lightly kicked the boot on my right foot, something I’d forgotten I was wearing until then; I let out a yelp.

“Christ, Stark,” Clint said, rolling his eyes. “Are you trying to kill her?”

“Sorry, sorry!” Before I could reply that I was alright, Tony scooped me up into his arms. “I’ll take you back to your room, we’ll move you in tomorrow…” He blinked a few times, as if something had just occurred to him. “If you want… I mean, I don’t want to force you.” I chuckled softly, resting my head against his shoulder; it’d been a long time since someone carried me this way and I was going to milk it for all it was worth.

“We’ll move me in tomorrow, Dad.”


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was inspired by [scifigrl47](http://archiveofourown.org/users/scifigrl47/pseuds/scifigrl47)'s series, [In Which Tony Stark Builds Himself Some Friends (But His Family Was Assigned by Nick Fury)](http://archiveofourown.org/series/18228)
> 
> Seriously, go read it. All of it. Right now. I'll be here when you get back.

“Tony?”

“Yeah Pax?”

“When you designed this robot, what was it supposed to function as?”

“Well, you crochet! So it was supposed to help with that!”

“Tony, it just took out a wall; _how_ is it supposed to help me crochet?”

“Admittedly, there are a few flaws…”

“If we live through this, I might kill you.”

Tony had packed up my things from SHIELD and brought me home the next afternoon; he waited for a time when we’d have the mansion to ourselves so he could show me around without a million distractions and be sure that Thor didn’t step on my foot.

Which was the least of my problems, because Tony’s robot was going to kill us both.

It was kind of cute, the little robot. It looked like a footstool, really. You know, if footstools were armed with lasers and moved at the speed of sound. The moment Tony and I walked through the main door, the mechanical devil fired at the wall behind us, effectively decimating it, which prompted Tony to pull me into the living room, down behind a ridiculously large sofa.

“There is no way that thing is supposed to help me crochet,” I said bluntly. “The lasers alone would set my entire yarn stash on fire and probably melt my hooks!”

“I said there were some design flaws!” Tony replied loudly. I clapped a hand over his mouth.

“It’ll hear you!” I hissed. Keeping my hand where it was, I leaned out to have a look around the couch; the robot was still in the entrance hall, seemingly searching for something. Us. “Damn it…” I looked around the living room, trying to figure out if there was something I could throw at the bot to at least distract it long enough for Tony and I to get away…

“Oh my god… Tony!? Sarah!?” Oh thank _god_.

“Captain!” I yelled, obviously doing the exact thing I’d told Tony _not_ to do. “Tony built a micro death bot, stay out of the front hall!”

“Are you two alright?” he yelled back. Judging by his voice, he was outside, probably on the porch.

“We’re fine, we’re in the living room!”

“…Why isn’t Tony talking?”

“I may be refusing to take my hand away from his mouth.” There was a moment of silence, save for a few whirrs and beeps from the death bot.

“Why didn’t we think of that?” asked an unfamiliar voice; it belonged to a man and was soft spoken.  Process of elimination told me it could only be one person.

“Doctor Banner!” I called, peeking around the couch again. “Any chance you could Hulk out and squash the thing?” The thing in question was no longer where I’d last seen it. “If you could, it’d be greatly appreciated because it’s gone and I have no clue where the little fucker went!”

“Language, Kiddo!” Clint yelled.

“Fuck you, Agent Barton! I’m pinned down behind a couch waiting to get killed by a Roomba!” I felt Tony chuckle into my hand. “Sorry,” I said, finally taking my hand away. “Did you have something to add?”

“No, no,” he replied with a grin. “I’m good.”

“You better be, this is _all_ your fault.” He opened his mouth to reply, but his jaw just hung there. “What…” I turned to see what he was looking at; the death bot was _flying_ towards us. “Oh shit!”

“BATTER UP!” I’m not one hundred percent sure _exactly_ what happened next, other than there was a whoosh, followed by a crash and then there was a whole in the far wall. “My friends!” the loud voice continued. “I believe that I have hit what you Midgardians call a ‘home run’! I wish to know where the bases are, so I might run them!” Tony and I looked at each other.

“Tony.”

“Yeah Pax?”

“The fucking _god_ of thunder just played baseball with your mini death bot.” I shook my head. “I’m not sure I can deal with the sheer awesome of it all.” Thor turned to me and smiled.

“You must be the one they call Kiddo!” he said, pulling me up from the floor and hugging me tight. “I have been hearing of your valiant exploits and am quite pleased to be finally meeting you!”

“With all due respect, sir!” I gasped. “I would like very much to not have to add broken ribs to my current list of injuries; please let me go?” Thor held me out at arm’s length—which is honestly high up on the list of weirdest things to ever happen to me—an apologetic look on his face.

“My apologies! I forget that you humans are so fragile.”

“No worries,” I replied as he set me on the couch. “We humans tend to forget that too.” As Thor threw back his head and laughed, the rest of the team rushed into the room. Clint had his bow out, an arrow nocked and ready to fire; Captain Rogers’ shield was on his arm; Doctor Banner… looked calm and that was likely a good thing.

“How the _hell_ did you build a mini death bot, Stark?” Clint asked, allowing his bow string to relax before putting his arrow away. Tony shrugged his shoulders

“To be honest, I really don’t know.” I rolled my eyes, wincing a little as I put my right foot up on the coffee table. “Oh shit, did you hurt it again?”

“It’s sore,” I admitted, “but I don’t think I did any more damage. I’ll just keep off it for a bit, go back to my crutches.”

“I could build…”

“No!” The fact that that exclamation had come from everyone in the house, save for myself and Tony, caused me to erupt into giggles.

“I don’t need you to build me anything, Tony, I’ll be fine.”

“Fine,” he replied, throwing his hands up into the air. “Go ahead, ruin my fun.”

“You guys are ruining Tony’s fun without me?” I looked towards the doorway and smiled at the deadly looking redhead who had joined us. “You must be Miss Stark, though I am told you prefer Sarah?”

“I do, yes, please,” I replied with a smile. “Pleasure to meet you, Agent Romanov; forgive me for not getting up.” I nodded to my injured foot; she waved her hand dismissively.

“Think nothing of it; it’s refreshing to see that _someone_ does as their told.” I chuckled a little, but said nothing.

“You guys want to watch a movie?” I asked. “I mean, we’re all here anyway, and if you’re not busy…” To my surprise, everyone started nodding their heads.

“Sounds good,” Clint said.

“I could go for a movie,” added Steve.

“Do we have any snacks?” asked Bruce, heading for the kitchen with Natasha on his heels and Steve following close behind, saying something about the microwave.

“Jarvis, clear my schedule for the rest of the day!” Tony said.

“You cleared it this morning, Sir,” replied a British voice from… well, everywhere. “Hello Miss Stark.”

“Hi Jarvis!”  I replied with a smile.

“What movie will we be watching, Lady Kiddo?” Thor asked, plopping down in a chair.

“You can use my name, Thor, honest… and…” I looked at the TV across from me, which was almost the size of the entire _wall_. “With a TV that size, it would be criminal _not_ to watch some Star Wars.” Tony grinned.

“I don’t think Steve’s seen those yet,” he said with a grin. “Been meaning to show him…”

“Then it’s our patriotic _duty_ to start with _A New Hope_ and go from there.”

“But that’s not the first one,” Clint said, possibly pouting a little. “We should start with _The Phantom Menace_!” This was a familiar argument for me, which trilogy to start with. Because it was familiar, I already knew what to say next.

“What Star Wars movie did you see first?”

“ _A New Hope_ , obviously.”

“It’s not ‘obvious’, I know people older than me who started with _The Phantom Menace_ … anyway! Would you have enjoyed the newer trilogy as much as you do if you hadn’t seen the other three first?” Clint pursed his lips slightly as he considered this.

“…no, I probably wouldn’t have.” He grinned. “Half the fun was making the connections, you know?”

“Oh, I know,” I replied. “I watched the _original_ original trilogy on VHS as a kid; I shouted in the movie theater when I saw the Special Editions because they changed the scene with Han and Greedo.” I smiled, remembering how a Han Solo cosplayer came up to me after the movie and ruffled my hair, telling me I had a good eye. “Can we honestly deny that pleasure to Steve?”

“No,” Clint replied with a grin. “No, we can’t.”

About twenty minutes later, the seven of us were ready to watch the first movie; Tony was to my left with Steve on his, Clint sat on my right, Thor stayed in the chair he’d sat down in earlier, Bruce sat on the far end of the couch, away from the rest of us, and… I don’t know why Tony owned a beanbag chair, but that’s where Natasha was sitting.  We watched the movies, made snarky commentary, ate snacks and all agreed “No, Tony, you don’t need to try to build the Millennium Falcon, the QuinJet works just fine.”

We were just about done with _The Empire Strikes Back_ (and Thor was totally teary eyed over Leia and Han’s “I love you”, “I know” exchange, don’t let anyone tell you otherwise) when I snuggled against Tony’s shoulder and closed my eyes. I was exhausted, though I wasn’t sure why. I was almost asleep when I heard Steve speak.

“Think she’s going to be alright here?” he asked softly.

“I think so,” Tony replied. I felt him put his arm around me, giving my shoulder a squeeze. “She’s adapted pretty well to this whole Super Hero thing pretty well so far.”

“And you to her,” said Natasha, and I could somehow _feel_ her grinning. “I must say, you have surprised me with that.”

“Good to know things surprise you, Tash.” I could feel Tony shrug his shoulders; I heard him say something more, but was so close to asleep that I couldn’t understand what it was. Moments later, I was dead to the world.


	10. Chapter 10

I was running. I couldn’t hear any music, making it hard for me to keep pace. I was staggering, my right foot throbbing with each step. I looked behind me; the Doom Bots were closing in; if I didn’t move faster, they would catch me. Why was this happening again, _how_ did this happen?

I was coming up on a ledge and I could hear voices telling me to jump.

“Jump!”

“Jump!”

“Go on, jump!”

“ _Jump_!”

The voices weren’t just my own; Captain Rogers, Clint, Natasha, Phil, Thor, Bruce, my parents, my brother, my friends… everyone wanted me to jump…

So I did.

Falling. Falling fast, but slow. Everything around me is at a snail’s pace, but I know I’m rocketing towards the ground. I’m going to hit aren’t I? There’s nothing to stop me, nothing to grab. I’m flailing for stuff to grab, but there’s nothing, nothing at all…

I can’t hear _anything_.

No.

That’s not right.

I can still hear _them_.

“Fall!”

“Fall!”

Falling…

Falling…

**_Splash_ **

No. No, not this. Please, not this, anything but this. I’m struggling to get out, grabbing handfuls of water as I aim for the surface. I’m not moving, how am I not moving…

No.

I am moving.

I’m moving _down_ …

Sinking…

Screaming…

 _Dying_ …

“Die.”

“Die.”

“ _Die_.”


	11. Chapter 11

“Paxie!”

My eyes shot open as I sucked in air with a hard, almost painful gasp. It was dark and something was holding me; I started to struggle.

“Easy, sweetheart! It’s just me!” That voice… the only voice that I _hadn’t_ heard before, the only one that didn’t tell me to jump, to fall, to _die_ …

“Tony?” I whispered, my voice frightened.

“Yeah, it’s me… fuck, Jarvis, turn the lights up a little?” The room brightened a little; I squinted my eyes for a second, reopening them to see Tony’s worried face looking down at me. He was sitting in the bed next to me (who’s bed, I had no idea), his arms wrapped around me. “I could hear you screaming from the basement, kiddo, are you alright?”

“I’m fine,” I replied, looking away. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to bother you…”

“Bother… Pax, look at me.” I didn’t; he put hand to my cheek turning my face towards him. “You are a lot of things, Paxie, but you are _not_ a bother. Not to me, not _anyone_.” He smiled. “Well, that’s not right, you are _totally_ a bother to one Victor Von Doom, seriously, did anyone tell you that you set a record for pissing him off?”

“Phil mentioned it, yes…” Tony laughed; his hand wasn’t on my cheek anymore, nor was he holding me with the other. We were just sitting in someone’s bed, talking. It was weird, but nice.

“Was that what you were screaming about?” I shook my head. “What was it then?”

“Nothing,” I replied. “It… it’s nothing, Tony, really.” We sat there in silence for what seemed like ages, both of us clearly trying to wait the other out. Either I would start talking or Tony would decide to leave and I could wait him out _forever;_ I waited people out all the time. I was the queen of waiting people out.

“Do you remember screaming?” Okay, that was not a question I planned for.

“No,” I admitted. “I mean, yeah, there was screaming, I didn’t know it was _me…_ ”

“You screamed for me.”

“I… I did?”

“Yeah,” Tony replied with a nod. “Well, you yelled ‘Dad’, so I figured…”

“I would mean you,” I admitted, and goddamn it, there it was again, that “I’m in a bad fanfic” feeling. “I wouldn’t call for _him_ of all people, not for help or… anything, really.”

“You’ll call for me though.”

“Well, yeah… Tony, you’ve been my hero since I was a kid.”

“You mean Iron Man…”

“ _No_ , god, Tony, I mean _you_.” I sighed, shaking my head. “You weren’t perfect. You made mistakes, but you did your best to fix them. And even then, you weren’t Batman pretending to be Bruce Wayne on days off, you were Tony Stark in and out of the suit and I still have no idea how people went so long without realizing that… but you were _you_ , no matter what. And that made me think that maybe I could be me too…”

“But you couldn’t be?” I shook my head again.

“No,” I replied. “By the time I’d found you, I… I didn’t remember what being me was like. It’s only just recently that I’ve gotten a pretty good handle on who me is…” I leaned back against the bedframe, hugging my knees to my chest. “It’s like… there’s Sarah Cornell and she’s _awful_. She can’t get mad because she’s not allowed, she doesn’t go anywhere, doesn’t do anything except what she’s told and, god, is she miserable.”

“Who’s Paxie?” Tony asks and he’s smiling and I can’t help smiling back.

“Paxie… feels things. She gets angry and sad and _happy_. She does things she wants to do, doesn’t let anyone tell her she has to do things. She’s a nerd and she loves it and…”

“And?”

“And she doesn’t understand why you’re being so fucking _nice_.” I was a small ball of human by now, my knees as tight against my chest as I could manage. “Honestly, we’ve known each other for like two days, I know I’ve been here longer than that, but we weren’t talking and that was my fault…”

“It wasn’t your fault,” I hear him say, but I’m on a roll by now, there will be no shutting me up.

“…but even then, you were texting me constantly to make sure I was all right and you’ve been taking care of me, despite the fact I’m twenty five, I can mostly take care of myself…”

“I know that.”

“…and I even almost know what I’m doing most of the time and that first day, when Phil said I was going to be your kid, you said you would have been there for me and I… it’s not even real, and I believed you…” Tony grabbed hold of my wrists and pulled me into his chest, wrapping his arms around me and hugging me tight. After a moment, I hug back.

“I know what it’s like,” he says after a moment. “To want so badly to be yourself, to be wanted by the people who should love you to most… to want to just make yourself disappear…” I’d never mentioned that feeling to Tony, but I couldn’t deny it.

“I decided that if I am suicidal, I’m a very lazy suicidal… can’t be bothered to take my own life…”

“I’m nice to you because I can’t help it,” Tony says quickly, hugging me tighter now. “Because there’s something about _you_ makes me want to protectyou… from Doom, from nightmares, from _yourself_ if I have to.” He takes my face in his hands and I’m crying now, not even trying to hide it. “You are _my_ Paxie, and I’m going to be nice to you as long as I have you.” A tear slid down my cheek and he wiped it away with his thumb. “Think you can go back to sleep?”

“Yeah,” I replied, yawning a little for emphasis. “Pretty sure… where the hell are we?” Tony laughed a little, shaking his head.

“Your room,” he replied. “I carried you up here after you fell asleep on the couch; just above mine and Steve’s, down the hall from Natasha. You can explore it in the morning.” I nodded my agreement, snuggling back down under the blanket, my eyes suddenly feeling quite heavy.

“I was running,” I muttered before letting out another yawn. “Doom Bots chasing me… Everyone was telling me to jump. You weren’t though…” I felt Tony’s fingers in my hair, which made me smile. “Then I was falling… and there was water… scared of drowning, don’t swim well.”

“You’re not going to drown, kiddo,” he promises me. I’m almost back to sleep by this time, but I somehow manage to say one last thing.

“No… no kiddo, Tony… I’m your Paxie.”


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm feeling sad tonight. Let's have dinner.

The next morning I was awake at 6am.

“Jarvis, can you turn the lights on?”

“Of course, Miss Stark.” The lights came on slowly, giving me a chance to finally look around my new room. It was bigger than my room at SHIELD had been, which shouldn’t have surprised me as much as it did. The bed was huge and comfortable; the bedside table held my phone, a laptop and a tablet, the latter two being accompanied with a post it note reading simply “let me know how they work, Tony”. It was strange to think that I’d been in this world over three weeks and only yesterday touched a phone for the first time. I hadn’t been near a computer at all… I would have to start a whole new tumblr, probably…

“Is everyone still sleeping, Jarvis?” I asked, stretching my arms above my head, rolling my neck slightly, although I really didn’t need to; I was used to waking up stiff, it was all part of living on a college campus with mattresses that were really just giant blocks of _foam_ and nothing else. But this morning… I felt good. I liked that feeling.

“Yes, Miss Stark,” came the reply. “Save for Captain Rogers, who just now left for his morning run, Agent Romanov, who went with Captain Rogers, and Mr. Stark who didn’t go back to bed last night. I’m to inform you not to feel guilty, as he wasn’t planning on sleeping before he spoke with you.” I chuckled a little.

“If it were anyone else, I’d still feel guilty, but knowing him? That’s probably true.”

“Indeed, Miss Stark. Is there anything else you require?”

“Nearest bathroom? I’d like to take a shower.”

“There is one in your quarters, Miss.” A light flashed over one of the doorways in the room.

“Thank you Jarvis… I’m not going to disturb anyone, am I?”

“Of course not, Miss. The Avengers don’t tend to rise before nine am on Sundays, unless called for by Director Fury.” My eyebrows raised, a smile curling my lips.

“It’s Sunday? Really? Man, I’ve really lost track of everything, haven’t I?”

“Yes, Miss Stark.” I chuckled a little.

“I’m going to need your help in the kitchen in about half an hour.”

I showered quickly, only because I was now a woman on a mission. Otherwise, I could have stayed in there for an hour or so, because dear _god_ , that was a fantastic shower. I grabbed something at random out of my closet, hoping it matched (dark purple-almost-black jeans with a Hawkeye t-shirt; I’d say I did pretty well) and went out of my room.

“Jarvis?”

“Yes, Miss Stark?”

“How do I get to the kitchen from here?”

“Go to your left until you reach the stairs,” he replied with a hint of amusement in his voice. “Once you go down the stairs, take a right and follow the hallway into the kitchen. Would you like anything preheated?”

“I don’t think so,” I replied, following his directions as I spoke. “Is the kitchen actually stocked or do the Avengers live on take out alone?”

“They do normally, Miss Stark, but Miss Potts had the kitchen stocked before you arrived.”

“Nice of her.” I liked Pepper. She was a very likable person. I liked her even _more_ when I saw that the kitchen had everything I would need. “Oh, this is going to be _fun_.”

I started baking with my mom the moment I was old enough to understand the phrases “don’t touch the stove, its hot”, “that knife is _sharp_ , Sarah”, and “we keep the fire extinguisher under the sink”. I started actually cooking meals when I was nine; my stepmother was recovering from giving birth to my half-sister, my brother flat out refused and my father was at work. The first thing I ever made was box macaroni and cheese that was more macaroni with a lightly cheese flavored milk sauce, but it was better than nothing. I excelled at the cooking portions of my home and careers class (Think Home Economics, but more politically correct), and entertained the idea of being a chef for a while before realizing that if it was something I _had_ to do every day of my life, I wouldn’t enjoy it as much. So I stuck with cooking for my family, for my friends, for me.

When I lived with my father, I got used to cooking big meals that were meant to last for two or three days afterwards. Not only that, but my father was a farm boy; he ate enough for two or three people _on his own_. Sundays were no different. Okay, they were, but in the sense that Sundays were the only day everyone got to eat until they were full. Sundays were the day for never ending stacks of pancakes, pan fried venison that had likely been cut fresh from the animal that morning, a rare glass of milk that you couldn’t have during the rest of the week and eggs any way you wanted them as long as it was scrambled or over-easy. It wasn’t perfect, but it was closer than normal.

When I moved out of my father’s house and in with my mother and stepfather, I didn’t cook as much; my mother, stepfather and brother didn’t eat as much and they liked… okay, not _they_. My _mother_ liked to put, by my own personal definition, weird shit in food. It wasn’t unusual for her to throw artichoke hearts into spaghetti, sundried tomatoes into box macaroni and cheese, or vegetarian “steak” strips into stir-fry and promptly become annoyed because I wouldn’t eat any of it. No offense to vegetarians, but I’m not one of you.

On to the point; Sunday morning (rain is falling!) was _made_ for big breakfasts. Either with everything out on the table to pass around, or stuff on the counter buffet style, or made to order as people woke up or came in from working outside or whatever. And they needed to start with bacon, because that takes the longest to cook if you want it done properly. Especially since the only bacon on hand was thick cut and that would take extra effort to make crispy. With Jarvis’ help, I located not only a frying pan, but an honest to god cast iron griddle. I about _died_.

For those of you who don’t cook (doesn’t matter what the reason, I’m not judging you), or just aren’t as into such things as I am, a cast iron griddle is a piece of cast iron used for cooking. I know, sounds pretty obvious, doesn’t it? However, a griddle can sometimes have raised portions, making it a griddle/grill, or come with a frying pan-like handle and have raised edges, making it a griddle-pan, but they are both _still_ griddles! It can get more complicated, but let’s focus on the _beauty_ I had before me, shall we? We shall.

This one was _classic_ ; a flat piece with rounded edges, long enough to cover both burners on one side of the stovetop. It was much like one I had used to make Sunday breakfasts for everyone and it made me smile; it would be perfect for the bacon and eggs. I could also use it for the pancakes…

Just as I had grabbed the carton of eggs out of the refrigerator, I felt something wrap around me, _all_ of me, and squeezed me tight. Seconds later, I found myself face to face with the Hulk.

And he looked _pissed_.


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There will probably not be another update for a couple days. See, there's this movie coming out, you may have heard about it. _The Avengers_. My BFF and I will be going to the midnight premier, so... yeah, there will be no time for writing.
> 
> Seriously, you all should be going to see the movie too, not reading this boring fic.

“Jarvis,” I said as calmly as possible, trying to ignore the tightness in my chest that was being cause by the huge _hand_ squeezing the life out of me. “I need help.”

“Of course, Miss Stark, what do you need?” The moment Jarvis began speaking, the Hulk let out an earth shattering roar, squeezing me tighter as swung his other fist towards the ceiling; apparently, Hulk was _not_ a fan of the AI. “Oh dear.”

“Yes, oh dear,” I said, gasping for air. “Jarvis, look through security footage! Find out what—ah!—what made Doctor Banner go green!”

“Right away, Miss Stark.” Another roar, another squeeze, oh god, how were my ribs not broken yet?

“And don’t talk anymore! It just pisses him off!” There was no response, which was good, another squeeze would likely have killed me. I tried to wrap my head around why he was angry, what _I_ had done to make him angry. Maybe he wasn’t a morning person and my being in the kitchen before seven annoyed him; the Hulk hadn’t met me before, maybe my being a stranger set him off…

No.

Contrary to popular (read as “my”) belief, not _everything_ is my fault.

I focused on what I knew: Something about Jarvis had _seriously_ pissed off Bruce Banner and then Hulk _happened_. Jarvis ‘ran the house’, functioned as a sort of butler. What did butlers do? I came from a poor family from Western New York, I had no idea what butlers did! I was left to base my knowledge of butlers on Alfred Pennyworth: Alfred patched up Bruce Wayne, probably sewed up the Bat suit when it needed it and he made tea. Jarvis could do those things, but in different ways; he could call a doctor, render paint mock-ups for the Iron Man suits and… okay, maybe he couldn’t make tea. If he could make tea, someone needed to tell me how he did that because I could really use a cup of tea right now.

Alfred also answered the phone. Took messages. _Delivered_ messages.

Bingo.

“Kiddo!” Another shake, another roar, another squeeze, oh so _that’s_ what a cracked rib sounds like…

“Clint, stay back!” I yelled, trying to wiggle my arms out of Hulk’s grasp to give myself _some_ extra room. “Something about Jarvis made him angry, he just gets madder if he hears his voice!” Hulk decided to enunciate this fact by swinging about his free hand and taking out the stove, damn it I had plans for that…

“You can’t tell me to stay back, Kiddo!” Clint yelled, though he stayed where he was. “I outrank you!”

“You can’t outrank someone who doesn’t _have_ a rank, Clint!”

“That doesn’t make sense!”

“Get Jarvis to _show_ you any messages Bruce got this morning! Don’t let anyone in the kitchen!”

“You realize no one’s going to listen to me about this, right? You’re in danger!” Hulk slammed his fist down through the island; Tony wasn’t going to have a kitchen at this rate.

“It’s something I’m getting used to, _please_ go talk to Jarvis!” I managed to wiggle one of my arms out of Hulk’s grasp, placing my hand on his wrist. “Hulk?” I asked softly. He looked at me, his green eyes _alive_ with anger, with rage… with _hurt_ … “It’s okay,” I whispered, doing my best Liv Tyler impression from the Edward Norton movie… Liv Tyler. No, _Betty Ross_. “Clint! Narrow your search to messages about Elizabeth Ross—AH!” He squeezed again, how wasn’t I dead, am I _immortal_ in this universe!?

“Pax!” Oh, this was just getting better and better.

“Tony, I’m fine!” Hulk took out the sink, which I’m sure had it coming. “Fine, perfectly fine!”

“That was not a fine scream, Paxie!” he informed me. “Clint, let me go!!”

“Nope, told Kiddo I’d keep people out of the kitchen,” Clint replied. “Kiddo, I found the message! She’s sick, in a hospital in New Jersey!”

“What’s wrong with her?”

“Pneumonia!” Pneumonia; can be life threatening, but if she was in a hospital then she’d probably be alright…

“Who sent the message?”

“Her father.” I _growled_. “Holy Shit, Kiddo, was that _you_?”

“He’s not letting Bruce see her, is he?”

“Yeah, how’d you know?”

“Lucky guess.” I looked at Hulk and the destruction he was causing and… I couldn’t blame him at _all_. If I had the ability to turn into a giant green rage monster and you told me I couldn’t see my best friend… hell, I’d Hulk out too.

I could hear Tony still yelling at Clint to let him go, and Clint still refusing. I could hear Hulk roaring with all the pain and anger he was more than entitled to… and for some reason, I could hear myself singing.

“When you’re down and troubled and you need a helping hand. And nothing… no, nothing is going right…” I stroked his wrist with my free hand; he was still roaring, but he wasn’t thrashing as much anymore. “Close your eyes and think of me and soon I will be there to brighten up even your darkest nights.”

My mom was only 19 when she had my older brother, twenty when I was born. She told me once that she didn’t know any normal lullabies, so she would sing James Taylor. For my brother, Jim, it was _Sweet Baby James_ ; for me, it was this.

“You just call out my name, and you know where ever I am, I'll come running to see you again. Winter, spring, summer, or fall, all you have to do is call and I'll be there… You've got a friend.” It was terrible and it was off key, but it was _working_ ; Hulk wasn’t roaring, he wasn’t destroying what was left of the kitchen, and he wasn’t destroying what was left of my little broken body. He was sitting against the only wall he hadn’t taken out. He released his grip on me, moving me so I was cradled in his arms rather than trapped in his fist. My left arm was across my chest, where I’d had it while I was in his grasp, while my right hand continued to stroke his wrist. His heart was racing, which was okay because so was mine. But he was calming down and only an idiot would stop doing something that was _clearly_ working.

I kept singing. When I was close to finishing, I could feel the Hulk shrinking; within moments, he was Bruce again. He was out cold, looking exhausted, but peaceful.

“Okay, Clint,” I said, my voice barely a whisper. “You can let Tony go now.” Tony rushed in before I finished my sentence, followed by Clint, and Steve and Natasha, the latter of whom looked _completely_ confused.

“What the devil?”

“Are you alright?” Tony asked, pulling me away from Bruce and checking me over quickly. “What happened, I heard the roar and then Jarvis wouldn’t talk to me and I couldn’t get out of the workshop, I don’t know why that was…”

“I’m _fine_ ,” I insisted. “I’m a little sore, but I don’t think anything’s broken… well, besides your kitchen.” Tony waved his hand dismissively.

“I’ll call the contractors tomorrow, I wanted something new anyway, you were _screaming_ …”

“Surprise, mostly… honestly, nothing really hurts…”

“What about that cracking sound, Kiddo?” asked Clint, because he would have heard it just as clearly as I did, wouldn’t he?

“Yeah, about that…” I moved my arm away from my chest; underneath was a completely crushed egg carton, yolk all over the front of my shirt. Honestly, I didn’t know why someone (namely me) hadn’t noticed it sooner. “Yolk’s on me, I guess…”

The joke was ill timed and completely corny; that didn’t stop anyone from laughing hysterically.


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OMG GUYS THE AVENGERS WAS AWESOME!
> 
> That being said, there will likely be spoilers in upcoming chapters! I will make sure to put it in the beginning notes if there are any spoilers ^_^

Much to his credit (and likely because I wouldn’t have listened anyway), Tony didn’t make me go on bed rest for the remainder of the day. In return, I let him run me to SHEILD for a check-up.

“You’re sure we couldn’t do this check-up elsewhere?” I asked casually, trying to fight back a grin when Tony looked at me. We were in the back of one of his limos, with Happy behind the wheel.

“You want to try to see her.”

“Yeah… and maybe sneak a laptop in. You know, so she can get some work done. And use Skype.”

“You realize Bruce just tried to kill you, right?”

“He didn’t try to kill me, Tony.”

“Sure as hell looked like it.” I narrowed my eyes a little.

“What if it was Pepper?”

“You’re not really going to go that route, are you?” he asked.

“Yes, because apparently I have to; what if it was Pepper in the hospital, and you were told you couldn’t see her?” Tony sighed, shaking his head.

“Yeah… I would have flipped out too.”  I rested my head against his shoulder, smiling when he put his arm around me.

“It could have been anyone,” I told him. “I was just the closest.”

“What were you doing, anyway?”

“Making breakfast for everyone.”

“Why?”

“It’s Sunday.” Either that was an acceptable answer, or Tony just didn’t know how ask for further clarification. Whatever the reason, he just shook his head.

We were in the SHIELD Medical wing all of five minutes before an unfamiliar voice sent chills straight down my spine.

“Miss Cornell.”

“I don’t like the way you said that, Director,” I replied quickly. “It implies that I’m not going to like what you’re going to say to me.”

“That’s his normal tone of voice, Pax,” Tony assured me, playing with a box of rubber gloves—not the box, specifically, he was playing with the rubber gloves that were previously _inside_ the box—while Doctor Garrison finished taping up my recently bruised ribs.

“This time, it’s a little of both,” Nick Fury said, taking a seat in an open chair. “We’ve got an update on your situation, Miss Cornell.” Had it been anyone else, I would have corrected him, told him to call me Sarah… not Nick Fury. If Nick Fury calls you Miss _anything_ , you let him.

“Which one?” I asked, pulling my shirt down over my new bandages. “The “yay me, I set a record for pissing off Doctor Doom” situation, or the “what the hell am I doing out of my universe” one?”

“The latter one,” he replied flatly, his eyes… eye… narrowing. “Our scientists have concluded that whatever opened the rift you fell through was triggered by something on your end.”

“Something, huh?” Tony asked; he had managed to tie four inflated rubber gloves together and used medical tape to affix them to a tongue depressor, which he presented to me. “A flower.” I started to giggle as he looked at Fury. “So you don’t think that it was done by a person?”

“Our scientists believe that whatever sent Miss Cornell to this universe was an isolated phenomenon that they can’t replicate here.”

“…so she’s stuck here?”

“Yes, Mr. Stark, Miss Cornell is stuck here.”

“They’re sure they can’t replicate it?”

“Pretty sure.”

“And these scientists, they’re good?”

“Yes, Mr. Stark, they’re quite good…”

“Did you ask…”

“Yes, we asked Doctor Richards, he concurs with our findings.”

“Huh. Paxie, anything you’d like… to… add… Paxie!?”

I should now tell you that I somehow managed to slip out shortly after “so she’s stuck here” and was out the front doors by the time anyone noticed.


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Slight Spoilers for The Avengers! Portion referenced was in trailers though, so people should already know about it.

All my life, I’ve been pretty good at hiding when I really wanted to. Games of hide and seek, not so much, but that was more because I _wanted_ to be found. I wanted to be found so I could play the detective and search for everyone else.

But when I want to hide, really want and _need_ to hide, it takes _forever_ to find me. I learned early to take everything everyone _knows_ about me and use it against them.

Everyone knows I’m claustrophobic; I started hiding in small closets and alcoves.

Everyone knows I hate school; I started hiding there.

Everyone knows I don’t like being outdoors; I started taking long walks as far away from home as I possibly could, whether it was on the road, on train tracks, in creek beds…

The Avengers and SHIELD knew next to nothing about me, and that just made things easier.

Another thing that made it easy was that I had never really been in New York before, so being that I didn’t know where I was going, how would anyone else?

I don’t know why I ran. Probably the sheer _definite_ of it all; hearing Nick Fury say they couldn’t send me home… was that really home anymore?

When I finally stopped running, I was somewhere so green and so unlike New York City that I thought I’d ran through another portal or something. It took me a moment to realize that I’d somehow ended up in Central Park. I could hide here, probably. I could be _lost_ here, definitely. I found a bench and sat down, watching people feed ducks in a pond. What was home now? Was home here, with Tony and the Avengers? Was home back with my blood family and… oh. _Oh_.

I knew where home was. Home was with _Kay_.

When I was thirteen years old, my father’s family got their first computer and I discovered AOL Instant Messenger. I also discovered a certain fan fiction website, where I started posting stories about The Dukes of Hazzard and Nash Bridges. I loved Nash Bridges to death. Because of one Nash Bridges fanfic, I met Kay, who was one of the only reviewers. I checked her profile, read a few of her stories and saw that she had an AIM account. I IM’d her, just a basic “Hello, you reviewed my fic and I wanted to say thanks.”

That was over ten years ago and I can honestly say I wouldn’t be in this world, in _any_ world, if she weren’t in it with me.

I leaned back on the bench and closed my eyes. Kay is my Pepper. My Watson, my Donna, my… she’s _my_ Kay. And she’s not here. And I don’t know how to _deal_ with that.

“For fuck’s sake, Paxie!” Before I could open my eyes, I felt a pair of arms wrap tight around me, holding me close. I opened them; Tony, completely suited up, was hugging me tight. “Don’t you _ever_ do that to me again! Do you have any idea what could have happened if Doom would have found you before I did?”

“Are we sure he’s still looking?” I asked a bit dumbly. “Also, bruised ribs… ow…” Tony winced slightly, loosening his grip.

“Sorry… seriously, though, you can’t run off like that, do you realize I have a heart condition?” He stopped hugging me completely, opting instead to hold my face in his hands. “Honey, you about gave me a _heart attack_ , why on earth did you run like that?”

“Because I didn’t know what else to do…” I tried to look away, but he kept my face still. Tears started running down my cheeks; he wiped them away with his thumbs.

“Come on,” he said, standing up. “I think we need a drink.” I chuckled a little.

“I hope you mean coffee…”

“I do now.” He held out his hand, which I took, allowing him to pull me to my feet. He put an arm around me. “You might want to hold on tight.” My eyes widened.

“You’re not…” Tony grinned, flipping his faceplate down. “No…” He shot up in the air, barely giving me time to close my eyes, wrap my arms around his neck and _scream_.

“You’re alright!” Tony assured me. “Come on, Paxie, open your eyes!”

“No!” I cried, wishing I could tighten my grip on his neck. “We are in the sky, Dad, I can feel the air rushing past us, I don’t like not being on solid ground or at the very _least_ , strapped into a roller coaster car or a Ferris wheel!”

“You ride roller coasters and you’re scared of flying with me? I think I should be offended.”

“Roller coasters don’t get attacked by super villains on a regular basis!” I heard Tony start to chuckle, felt us slowing down.

“We’ve stopped, alright? Open your eyes.” I shook my head. “You think I’m going to drop you?”

“Why would I think that?” I asked, honestly, looking at him… well, at the faceplate. “The last thing you’re going to do is drop me…” He opened his faceplate; he was smiling, keeping his arms tight around me.

“Look where we are.” I hesitated a second before turning my face away from his; we were hovering above Stark Tower. The view of the city from there was _gorgeous_ , there was no other way to describe it. I’d never seen anything like it before, ever…

“Oh wow,” I whispered, just looking over it all. “It’s beautiful…” Tony landed us on the roof, and I watched in awe as the suit removed itself from him as he walked. I’d seen this before, of course, I had gone to a midnight premier of _The Avengers_ just before coming to this world… but it was still thrilling to watch.

“Come on,” Tony said, taking my hand. “I’ll brew us a pot of coffee.”

Ten minutes later, Tony and I were sitting across from each other, each of us with cup of coffee in our hands. He raised his eyebrow at me when I only put milk in mine; I tried not to be judgmental when he added half a bowl of sugar to his. We sat there in silence, waiting each other out. After a few minutes, I started to speak.

“I’m a runner,” I said slowly. “I run when I’m sad, when I’m angry, when I’m scared; I always have. I’m not brave enough to stand my ground over anything.” I took a sip of my coffee. “I ran because I was sad, I was angry and I was _scared_ … and running’s all I know how to do.”

“Running’s a good skill to have,” Tony replied. “I’d rather have you run when you think you should rather than standing still because you think you have to. He reached across the table and took my hand, giving it a gentle squeeze. “You know, you’re a lot braver than you admit.”

“No, I’m not.”

“You got grabbed by the Hulk this morning, Pax. You didn’t start screaming, begging us to get him off you; you told Clint to find out what was wrong…”

“I feel I should be able to fire General Ross.” Tony shook his head.

“You’re not military, Pax, you can’t…”

“Out of a _canon_ , Tony.”

“Oh. I’ll ask Fury about that one.” We were quite for a moment.

“I miss my best friend, Tony,” I said finally. “Kay, she’s… she’s my everything, Tony. If she hadn’t been there for me, I wouldn’t be _here_ now; I would have stopped being lazy and just been suicidal, but I stuck around for her. Because I felt she needed me as much as I needed her and I knew if I did die, no one would tell her what happened to me. And that would’ve killed her. And I wouldn’t do that to her.” Tony didn’t reply; likely, he didn’t know what to say to that. Which was okay, neither did I. “Is Doctor Banner okay?”

“Yeah, he’s fine,” Tony replied with a nod. “Showed up at SHIELD shortly after you left, came here when you were there; probably still up in his lab.”

“I want to go see him. Please.” Tony hesitated a moment, but nodded.

“Sure thing.”


	16. Chapter 16

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Slight Spoilers for The Avengers! You have been warned!

I walked into Doctor Banner’s lab alone, having made Tony wait elsewhere. Banner had been working at a table in the back and didn’t notice me at first; when he did, he looked at me, his expression one of surprise and remorse.

“Sarah, I…”

“You know,” I said, sitting down across from him. “When I was in sixth or seventh grade, I had a _friend_ tell me that I wasn’t allowed to have a bad day. Those were her exact words.” I ran my fingers through my hair. “I was angry before that. I was angry because that morning, my father… I hadn’t done the dishes the night before because I was too busy watching his kids while he and his wife were at the bar. He made me do them before school, the whole time he yelled at me… and finally, I… I slammed a plate down and broke it and told him I was tired of trying to please everyone.” I shook my head. “The rest of that was probably ‘because it’s never good enough’… but I never got to say it. He shoved me against the big freezer we had in the kitchen and slapped the _shit_ out of me, telling me I never pleased him.” I wiped my eyes quickly. “I never told anyone why I ended up at school crying that day, why I was so angry… because my _friends_ didn’t care why. All they cared about was that happy, bubbly Sarah wasn’t happy and bubbly and they didn’t want that.”

“I… I’m sorry.” I nodded my thanks. I could have said “not your fault”, but I hated when people did that; it was like saying you didn’t care that they cared.

“I only had a ‘bad day’ once more after that,” I continued. “There was this girl, she was younger than me and she would just find things about me that she didn’t like and pick at them… and I would just take it.” I drew a deep breath, letting it out in a huff. “And then one day, I couldn’t take it anymore. I don’t remember what she said or what she did… but we were in gym class and I slammed into her from behind and I started beating the _shit_ out of her. No one stopped us at first. I found out later that apparently people liked me more than her and were okay with my trying to kill her… I don’t remember how it ended. The next thing I knew, I was hiding in the girl’s locker room with a chocolate bar trying to calm down…”

“You went green,” Banner replied.

“No,” I replied. “I… you know the truth about me, right? That I’m… from out of town?”

“Yeah. I’m a comic book character where you’re from.”

“You’re in a few movies too.”

“Really? Good actor?”

“My favorite you was played by Mark Ruffalo.” Banner smiled. “The last movie I saw was about all of you coming together to stop Loki. Everyone asked you what your secret was, how you stayed so calm…” I glanced up at Bruce, a sad, yet hopefully understanding smile on my face. “You said it was because you were always angry. And I was sitting in a movie theater, watching you say that, and all I could think was ‘Dear God… someone gets it’; someone gets that people can be angry all the time and hide it so well because we _have_ to… because we have no other choice.”

“This morning, then,” Banner said slowly. “Is that why you…?” He fumbled with his hands, showing he wasn’t sure how to express what I’d done.

“Doctor Banner,” I replied. “You and the Hulk are one; you can let him out whenever you want. For you to go green and not be in control of it, something _had_ to be wrong.”

“And you thought to ask what. Why?” I shrugged a little, shaking my head.

“No one ever asked me what was wrong. Maybe if someone had…” I threw my hands up a little. “I can’t change it now… but I can ask if I think something’s wrong with my friend.”

“You… see me as a friend?” Banner’s voice and face showed his surprise quite well.

“You haven’t given me reason to see you as an enemy.”

“I… I could have killed you this morning.”

“But you didn’t.” I grinned. “You did make it hard for me to make pancakes though; little upset about that. I really wanted pancakes.” Bruce laughed.

“I do apologize for that,” he said earnestly. “I, myself, would have liked some pancakes. I’m sure they would have been quite delicious.” I thought for a moment; my grin widened. “You look very much like Tony when you smile like that… it’s a bit… scary.” I got to my feet, stretching a little.

“Stark Tower has a kitchen, right?”

“Yes…”

“And you just said you wanted some pancakes.”

“You’re going to trust me, possibly the _Hulk_ in a kitchen?” I shrugged my shoulders.

“It’s not like Gordon Ramsey’s going to be in there,” I replied.

“True…” I smiled, holding out my hand to him.

“After what happened this morning… do you trust me?” Banner looked at my hand a bit nervously.

“I… yeah, I think I do.” My smile widened; I wiggled my fingers a little.

“Then, Doctor Banner, let me trust _you._ ” He looked at my hand again. A moment later, he clasped his own around it.

“One condition?”

“Name it.” He smiled.

“Call me Bruce.”

Half an hour later, the Avengers (including Phil Coulson, who will always be an Avenger in my head), Nick Fury, and Pepper Potts received the following text message:

_Sarah and Bruce cordially invite you to come partake in the fifty-odd stacks of pancakes we’ve prepared; there are several varieties, served with bacon, eggs, and a choice of drinks._

_If convenient, report to the Stark Tower cafeteria at 1700 hours (That’s 5pm for you non-military types)._

_If inconvenient, come anyway._

Much to my surprise, everyone showed up. Bruce and I were covered in flour, Thor—who had apparently been in New Mexico all day, and missed out on everything—ate enough pancakes for ten people (and then went and made _more_ ), Steve had never tried them with chocolate chips before (he agreed that he’d been missing out on something good), and everyone gave me weird looks when I put my over-easy eggs on top of my pancakes and smothered the entire thing in syrup.

While everyone was talking, Tony put his arm around me and gave me a squeeze.

“Doing okay, sweetheart?” he asked softly.

“Yeah,” I replied, resting my head on his shoulder.

“Are you really upset? That you’re stuck here, I mean?” I frowned a little. “I mean, you can be upset, upset is totally fine…”

“It… it was a shock,” I admitted. “There’s things I’ll miss from there, you know? But if I did go back, I’d miss things from here too.” Tony nodded.

“Yeah, you’re kind of damned if you do, damned if you don’t…” I laughed.

“Yeah I am… seriously, though?” I looked up at him, smiling. “If I was going to be stuck anywhere, I’d want it to be here with you.” I thought a moment before nodding at the rest of the table. “And, you know, them too.” Tony chuckled, giving me another squeeze.

“Good to hear.”


	17. Chapter 17

I am a morning person provided that I’m not woken up. If I get up of my own volition, it doesn’t matter the time, I am ready to go with in five, ten minutes.

However.

If you wake me up.

You will have serious, _serious_ problems.

This is why Captain Steven Rogers, late of US Army’s the Howling Commandos and current leader of the Avengers, took a pillow to the face at 5:30 Monday morning.

“Captain,” I said as pleasantly as my tired person could manage. “You better have a damn good reason for waking me up this early or I swear, Jarvis will be waking you with Welsh Death Metal for the rest of the _month_.”

“Sorry,” Captain Rogers replied sheepishly, rubbing the back of his head. “I… I was wondering if you wanted to go for a run with me.”

“I... I don’t like running. Not unless there are killer robots after me.” I felt bad, but that was the truth. I ran because I had to, not because I liked to…

“Okay,” the Captain said, the smile not leaving his face. “Is there something else you want to do?”

“…at 5:30 in the morning?”

“…yes.” He was going out of his way to do something with me. He and I had barely spoken since that first day; that day when he looked so angry that I knew who he was, that I knew what he’d wanted to say to Peggy, that I knew _anything_ … but now, he was going out of his way spend time with me. I had no idea why, but I wanted to.

“I’d love to go for a walk in Central Park. The sun’ll be rising soon; if we hurry, we can catch it.”

This is why I find myself walking through Central Park at 5:45 in the morning, holding a cup of coffee bought from a street vendor, with Captain Steve Rogers at my side.

“You like taking walks?” he asks as we strolled down a trail by the Pond.

“Yeah,” I reply with a nod. “It… it used to be the only time I’d get to myself.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah… me going for walks was how I got a lot of my exercising in, so my father and stepmother let me do it… I’d walk an hour or two on my own, as far away as I could…”

“And sometimes you’d think about not turning back?” I looked at him, surprised.

“Yeah… sometimes I’d think that maybe if I kept going, I’d end up some place where someone needed me… maybe even _wanted_ me.” I tilted my head slightly. “How did you know?”

“I used to walk away from everything,” he told me. “Not after I joined the Commandos, when I was doing the PR stuff for Senator Brandt… no one knew who I was without the costume on, it was really easy to slip into civilian clothes, put on a hat and… walk away. What wasn’t easy was walking _back_.”

“Why did you?” I asked. He shrugged his shoulders.

“Felt I had to, I guess. Duty and all that. How about you?” I hesitated a moment.

“Same reason.” He chuckled a little.

“Small side effect of the serum? I can tell when people are lying.” I raised my eyebrows.

“So can I. No serum.” Another chuckle.

“Alright… how about we be truthful with each other then? No matter what your answer is to that last question, I won’t think any less of you.”

“It’s really hard to think less than nothing.” No chuckle; his smile had faded when he looked at me.

“You believe I think nothing of you?” he asked.

“I believe that you are pretty set in your ways, Captain Rogers; you don’t understand me, what I’m doing here or how I got here. You don’t like things you don’t understand and that includes me.” He opened his mouth, likely to protest. “But everyone else does like me. That confuses you as well, but you _want_ to understand it; you want to understand _me_. Why else would you try to get me to go running this early in the morning?” He quirked an eyebrow at me.

“You sound like someone from one of those criminal shows that Clint and Coulson watch,” he replied. “I think they’re called profilers.” It was my turn to chuckle a little.

“Would you believe I was studying for that?” I asked; he shook his head. “Not that specifically; my major was Sociology with a Criminal Justice emphasis, but I was thinking about taking more classes that would deal with behavioral analysis.”

“Why? It seems like such a… terrible field to be in…” I shrugged my shoulders.

“Individuals interest me.”

“Why?”

“Because they’re brilliant.” I smiled, feeling myself coming alive. “An individual is a brilliant thing more than worth studying in depth.”

“Even the ones who become criminals? _Murderers_? You call that brilliant?”

“You’re walking right into me making a bad joke that you won’t like, Captain.” I took another sip of my coffee. “The individual can still be brilliant, even if their actions are terrible. The study is finding the point in which that brilliant person started doing those terrible things.”

“And it doesn’t get to you? You can study these things, and it doesn’t bother you at all?”

“Oh, hell no; it bothers me all the time.” I closed my eyes, seeing images of various crime scenes discussed in a criminal investigation class flash through my head. I shuddered a little, my eyes snapping open. I turned to Steve, smiling sadly. “The moment it _stops_ bothering me is the moment I _start_ being one of those brilliant persons doing terrible things; the moment it stops bothering me is the moment I check myself into a psych ward.”

“Are you going to keep at it?” he asked. “I mean, you’re here now… Tony could get you into any university in the country if you wanted him too…”

“I don’t know,” I admitted. “Haven’t really thought about what to do with any spare time I get. Maybe I will take it up again, or… I don’t know, maybe I’ll write.”

“You write?”

“Yeah, been a hobby of mine since I was in my teens. Always wanted to write the next great mystery, real page turner.”

“You like mysteries?” There was enthusiasm in his voice. It made me smile, because that was my kind of enthusiasm.

“Oh yeah, have since I was a kid. I read my first Sherlock Holmes story in fourth grade, _The Speckled Band_ , discovered Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys in sixth grade… oh man, I read every single one my school library had…”

“You liked Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys?”

“Still do! I had a pretty decent collection once...”

“What happened?”

“My house burnt down.”

It was a fact of life for me by now; one March afternoon in 1999, I called my house to get a ride home from a class meeting that was supposed to take about half an hour, but only took ten minutes. My stepmother’s sister, Tammy, answered the phone.

“Hey, Tammy!” I’d said cheerily. “The class meeting’s done and the late bus won’t be here for another hour; can someone come get me?”

“Not right now, Sarah, the house is on fire!”

“What?” Right then, the fire alarms sounded, echoing through the hallways of Andover Central School from their starting point on the other side of town. “Oh my god…”

The moments following that were a blur; some friends of mine stayed at the school with me while I was stranded there and I vaguely remember all of us singing a rousing rendition of the Dixie Chicks’ “Goodbye Earl” (morbid, I know, but it was a song all of us knew). I got to my grandmother’s house somehow; I might have walked there, someone might have finally come to pick me up, I really don’t remember. The one thing I’ll always remember, though, is looking at my old backpack while I sat in my grandmother’s living room, watching reruns of “Murder, She Wrote”.

It was an old backpack that I’d had for at least two or three years and it was _completely_ falling apart; I’d sewed it back together so many times, simply because I didn’t dare ask for a new one. As I looked at it, half thinking I should really pull out my math homework and get started on it, I started hearing George Strait singing in my head.

_Baby all I’ve got is this beat up leather bag_

_And everything I own don’t fill up half_

And that was me; everything I owned would now fit in my old, falling apart backpack.

“Sarah?” I blinked, shaking my head quickly.

“Sorry, Captain, what were we talking about?” He opened his mouth, closed it instantly and smiled.

“Mystery novels,” he said. “And maybe grabbing another coffee?” I smiled back; before I could reply, we both heard a scream.

“Oh my GOD! It’s Chris Evans!” A flock of females started towards us.

“Who’s Chris Evans?” Steve asked me, his eyes wide with actual _terror_.

“An actor.”

“And he looks like me?”

“Yup.” I took a couple steps to my right.

“What are you doing?”

“Getting out of the way of the Estrogen Tornado.”

Two seconds later, the sea of raging hormones engulfed him, everyone asking for autographs, pictures and “O.M.G, will you say hi to Tumblr for me?” I chuckled a little, watching Steve do his best to explain to these women that he was, in fact _not_ Chris Evans, and pulled out my phone to call Tony.

“H’lo?” he answered sleepily.

“Tony, it’s me,” I replied, my polite chuckles slowly building into hysterical laughter. “Steve and I are at the park, I’ll explain why later… seriously, though, a bunch of woman think he’s _Chris Evans_ , and…” I felt something prick the side of my neck sending cold chills throughout my entire body. My vision started to blur; all my limbs felt heavy, as if they were suddenly made of stone.

“…and what, Paxie? …Paxie? Paxie!”

“Dad…” The last thing I remember is starting to fall…

And _someone_ catching me.


	18. Chapter 18

I woke up freezing cold to a pounding headache. I couldn’t move, I could barely breathe. I felt numb, but was hurting at the same time, which shouldn’t be possible, but it somehow _was_. I opened my eyes and looked down; I was encased in ice, from my feet to my shoulders.

“So,” I muttered, looking around the room. “This is what Luke Skywalker felt like…”

“I don’t understand that reference,” a cold voice informed me, somehow sending more chills through my body.

“Are you quoting Castiel, or do you really not get it?” I tried to keep my face expressionless as Loki walked into my field of vision. “I’m going to guess you really don’t get it… see, there’s this movie, it’s called _The Empire Strikes Back_ , and…” The ice started moving up higher, wrapping tight around my neck; what little ability I had to breathe was vanishing. “No…”

“Then I suggest you cease with your nonsense, Other Worlder.” I must have looked surprised, because he started to laugh. “You think that I, an Asgardian, wouldn’t realize that you’re not of this realm?”

“Technically, I am of this realm,” I informed him. “I do hail from Midgard, just one that’s para…” The ice moved further, completely covering my mouth. I tried to struggle, but it did no good; I was effectively gagged.

“Much better.” He walked over to me, threading his fingers into my hair and gripping tight. “Listen up, Other Worlder; I know you’ve been misplaced in this realm and your little hero friends have stated that they can’t send you home.” He grinned. “I can. And I will. All you have to do is a little something for me.” I shook my head; he frowned. “You’ve not even heard what I want yet.” I shook my head again.

“ _I don’t care_ ,” I thought, knowing full well that he could hear me.

“Don’t you now?” he asked. “And why might that be?” His grin returned. “Aha. Could it be that you’ve grown fond of this realm? That changes things then…” He pulled on my hair, earning a pained yelp from me. “How about this, Other Worlder: do as I command, or I _will_ send you home.” I shook my head again, wincing slightly. “You still defy me?”

“ _I do._ ”

“Why?”

“ _It’s my alignment, man; I’m required to do the best good a person can do. And, unfortunately for you, that means not doing whatever it is you want me to do._ ” He glared, releasing his grip on my hair.

“Well then…” His skin turned blue, his eyes went cold. “I guess there’s no reason to keep you around.” Within seconds, the ice had encased me completely and became colder than anything I’d ever felt before. I could feel my skin freezing, my heart pounding as panic started to set in.

“ _Loki…_ ”

“Have you changed your mind, Other Worlder?” he asked, a tone of smug satisfaction in his voice.

“ _Not at all… just have a suggestion for you._ ”

“Do you now? And what might that be?”

“ _The next time you encase me in ice… you might want to take away my phone._ ” The trickster god looked confused for a moment, but then his gaze went down to my right hand, which was still grasping my Stark Phone.

“What…” Loki didn’t get a chance to finish that sentence, thanks to a Mijolnir to the face, courtesy of everyone’s favorite demi-god of thunder. To my and Thor’s surprise, however, Loki vanished the moment Mijolnir touched him.

“Brother!” Thor yelled loudly. “Cease this madness, have you not brought enough punishment upon yourself!?” My eyes slowly dropped closed.

“ _Thor…_ ” I did know if he could hear me like Loki could. All I knew was that I was literally freezing to _death_ and if he didn’t hurry… “ _I don’t want to die…_ ”

My thoughts were interrupted by a loud cracking sound and my eyes snapped open as the ice around my head crumbled in Thor’s hands; he had squeezed the ice to break it. Within seconds, he had grabbed the ice at my neck and pulled, ripping it off of me like it was nothing. I fell forward into his arms, which he used to cradle me, holding me close.

“Thor,” I said, my words shaking as I was from the cold. He placed a warm hand against my cheek, tilting my head slightly to look at him; his eyes were soft, worried… _scared_.

“I have you now,” he informed me. “You are safe as long as I am here.” I nodded, not knowing what to say to that.

“Loki… where…”

“He is on Asgard, Lady Sarah.”

“No… Thor he was here, he was just here…”

“An illusion,” he said, a bitter tone in his voice. “More powerful than ones I’ve seen him use before, but not even they could stand up to my hammer.” He removed his cape and wrapped it around me. “I am sorry he has treated you like this…”

“I’m alright,” I said, snuggling against him, because oh my _god_ was he warm. “I just wish I knew what he wanted…”

“Yes, we could hear you refusing him on the phone… well, I could. I told the others what you were saying.”

“The others? Are they here?”

“Director Fury would not allow Iron Man or Captain America to join me, as they are too emotionally involved. I am not. As of yet.” I smiled, chuckling a little.

“Good to know I haven’t compromised the _entire_ team.” Thor chuckled as well, standing up.

“I will be flying us back to New York; is that acceptable?

“Perfectly… where are we?”

“I believe Tony called this place Antarctica.” My jaw dropped.

“How am I not dead? Seriously, I should be dead.”

“My brother’s influence has kept you safe from natural occurrences, but it will not last much longer.” He began to swing Mijolnir, holding me tight. Seconds later, we were in the air, flying towards New York. “ _My Lady Sarah, I must ask you…_ ” It was weird hearing his voice in my head, but I was going to go with it.

“ _Ask me what?_ ”

“ _You mentioned an alignment… what does that mean?_ ” I smiled a little.

“ _Has to do with a game I played a few times… basically, your alignment is your set of core beliefs; my alignment is Neutral Good, which means that I’m guided by my conscience and while I tend to obey the laws of others, I do so only as long as it benefits the greater good. If I need to bend or break a law to help people, then I’ll do it willingly_.”

“ _So that is why you did not even listen to what Loki wanted; you knew it would not benefit the greater good._ ”

“ _Yeah… that, and I was pretty sure he was lying about sending me back._ ” Thor laughed, which sounded like a rock concert in my head.

“ _You are wise beyond your years, Lady Sarah_.”

“ _Not really,_ ” I replied, closing my eyes. “ _I just don’t like bullies…_ ” I yawned, the warmth of Thor and his cape making me tired. “ _I think I’m going to conk out…_ ”

“ _Conk..?_ ”

“ _Sorry… I mean I’m going to fall asleep. Unless you need me…_ ”

“ _We will be in New York soon enough, Lady Sarah. If you need to sleep until then, do so by all means._ ”

“ _Thank you, Thor… for everything._ ” Anything more he may have said, I completely missed; seconds later, I was out like a light.


	19. Chapter 19

When I woke up this time, I woke up feeling warm and safe. I opened my eyes and looked around; I was in my room at Avengers Mansion. There were flowers everywhere. _Everywhere._ Not so much that I felt like I was in a John Cusack flick, but pretty close.

“Tony wasn’t sure what kind of flowers you liked.” I looked to my right; Steve was seated in a chair by my bed, looking like he’d been there for a while. “So, he got you… all of them, I assume.” I smiled, shaking my head a little.

“Yellow roses,” I replied. “But I think we can agree if he _had_ known, he would have just filled the room with those.”

“Yeah,” Steve admitted with a laugh. “Yeah, you’re right.”

“If he tries that, just tell him to have someone plant me a rose bush?”

“I’ll do my best.” He moved his chair closer to the bed. “You know, you had us worried there for a bit…”

“It’s not my fault I got kidnapped by the Norse god of Trickery.”

“No, not that… you’ve been asleep for almost four days…”

“…that’s totally _your_ fault; see what happens when you wake me up at 5:30 in the morning?” Steve laughed a little, shaking his head. “Seriously, I’m all right… mostly…” Now that I was almost fully awake, I could feel my head pounding, hear the raspy tone in my own voice. “Won’t lie; think I have a cold.”

“Yeah, you started running a fever the second night… Tony started freaking out when you hit 102, but the doctor said you’ll be fine.”

 “Damn, really?” I sat up in bed, stretching a little. “I ran a fever?”

“That surprises you?” he asked. “Not the sleeping for four days?” I shrugged my shoulders.

“Now that I know I was running a fever it doesn’t,” I replied. “I don’t usually run fevers when I get sick; I’ll get the coughs, sneezes, cold chills, all the symptoms, but I don’t run a fever. The last time I did, I had the flu and was home for almost a week; I slept most of the time I was home.” I threw the blankets off and started to get up.

“Hey, whoa!” Captain Rogers stood, putting a hand out to push me back down. “You just woke up, you shouldn’t be moving around yet.” I dodged away from his hand, rolling off the bed and running towards the door.

“I’m fine, Captain!” I sang, escaping out into the hallway. “And I’m hungry!” I ran towards the stairs, hearing him gaining on me.

“Then I’ll bring something up! You’re going to hurt yourself again or make yourself sick!” He reached out to grab me, but I slid down the bannister out of his reach.

“If you want me back in bed, you’ll have to catch me first!” I got off the bannister and ran towards the kitchen… right into the arms of Tony Stark.

“Paxie!” he cried, hugging me tight. “When did you wake up? Are you alright, how are you feeling?”

“I’m fine,” I replied. “I’m _hungry_ , but I’m fine.” I pulled away just enough to get a good look at him; I didn’t like what I saw. He looked _exhausted_ ; the bags under his eyes were dark and heavy and his face was pale. “You’re not though… have you been awake the entire time I was out?”

“I was working on something for you…”

“And now you’re not.” I saw Captain Rogers coming over to us. “Captain, I’ll make you a deal; I’ll get some food and go right back to bed if you lock Tony in your room and make him get some sleep through any means necessary.” Captain Rogers smiled.

“How about I’ll do that and then bring you up something?”

“I’m already down here, that really wastes time.”

“Fair enough.” He picked up Tony and slung him over his shoulder.

“Don’t I get a say in this?” Tony asked, a whining tone in his voice.

“No,” Captain Rogers and I answered together. I moved behind Steve so I could stand on my toes and kiss Tony on the forehead.

“Get some rest?” I asked, smiling a little. “I’ll make cheeseburgers when were both feeling better?”

“Ooh, Cheeseburgers!” His voice was enthused, but still so tired.

“Away with you now, oh tired one.” He waved to me as Captain Rogers took him to their bedroom and I watched until they were out of sight. Once they were, I went to the fridge (which somehow survived the Hulk attack) and looked inside; I was hungry enough to eat everything inside, but knew that probably wasn’t the best idea. I managed to find a small bottle of ginger ale, which I snagged quickly. In the cupboard, I found a box of saltine crackers, which I also took. It wasn’t first class dining, but it would get something into me until I was well enough to eat the cheeseburger I’d promised Tony.

I walked back over to the stairs, fully intent on keeping my promise to Captain Rogers, when I encountered a small problem; the stairs were quite numerous and I was suddenly quite tired. If I tried to walk up those stairs, there was about a 9 in 10 chance that I would end up hurting myself somehow. This was problematic.

“Need a little help?” I looked to my left; Captain Rogers was standing there, an amused look on his face.

“Now that you mention it,” I replied. “I could use some help getting back into bed.” He smiled, picking me up carefully and starting up the stairs. “Thanks Captain Rogers.”

“Why do you keep calling me that?” he asked.

“…It’s your name?”

“You call everyone else by their first name… why not me?”

“Well, they said I could.”

“What?”

“Phil, Clint, Tony, Bruce… they all said I could use their first names. Natasha hasn’t, but I don’t really see her that much and Thor… he’s Thor. What else am I going to call him?” Captain Rogers just stared at me, his expression one of disbelief. “What?”

“You’ve seriously been waiting for me to give you permission to use my first name?”

“Well, yeah…”

“ _Why_?”

“Because that’s how I was taught,” I replied. “My mother told me that it was to be Mister, Misses, Miss or the person’s title, with their last name until given permission to do otherwise.” I shrugged my shoulders. “Core programing man, haven’t been able to overwrite it.” He shook his head, setting me down in my bed.

“Sarah?”

“Yeah?”

“Call me Steve?” I smiled.

“Aye Captain.”


	20. Chapter 20

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Do you have a question for Sarah Stark? Now you can ask it! Head over to [Ask Sarah Stark](http://asksarahstark.tumblr.com/) on tumblr and ask away!
> 
> I don't know what I'm doing anymore, seriously. The full story behind this ask blog may become part of Portal one day, we'll see!

Though she was thrilled to find out that my ankle was pretty much healed, Doctor Garrison kept me in bed for a few more days, wanting to make sure I was completely recovered before allowing me out into the world again. Of course, while I was stuck bed, Tony had to travel overseas to his London office to work on something for Stark Industries, taking Steve with him.

“Next time,” he promised me. “Next time, we’ll all go together.” I believed him; not just because he was a multibillionaire, but because I could tell he really wanted me to go with him and Steve. Steve promised to grab me something from the Sherlock Holmes museum; I could tell he wanted me to go with them too.

I went from having no dad to having two of them; my life is really rather weird.

Tony and Steve left two days before Doctor Garrison took me off bed rest. The worst part about them being gone was that I was essentially alone at the mansion, even more so when I was actually well and no one was popping in to see how I was feeling or if I needed anything. Natasha—who I won’t say doesn’t like me, but she doesn’t exactly make it easy for me to try to talk to her—spent most of her time at SHIELD, only coming back to the mansion to sleep; Clint was the same way. Thor spent a lot of his time in New Mexico with Doctor Foster, though he would apparently be helping her move to New York within the next few weeks.

Bruce apparently traveled a lot, doing research for various things, and had left the day after Tony and Steve. I did, however, find a green teddy bear in a pair of purple shorts by my bed when I’d woken up that morning, along with a small white card that simply read “Get Well Soon, Bruce”.

I about melted when I found the bear; despite the fact I’m 25 years old, I still sleep with a teddy bear, it’s head normally tucked under my chin. I am fully capable of sleeping without one, I have done it before, I just prefer not to; it feels safe, having a little furry friend close to me. While the bed I have is very large and _very_ comfortable, I still miss sleeping with something to hang onto. I tried a pillow, but it wasn’t the same and I wasn’t sure how to go about asking someone to take me to buy a teddy bear (though the mental image of Captain America and Iron Man in a Build-a-Bear workshop is one that will make me giggle for a long time to come). Now, I didn’t have to worry about it.

I named my new friend Bixby; no one has asked why.

I ended up spending a lot of time on my laptop or my Stark Tablet, Googling myself. Well, Googling Sarah Stark; I found out that while the world had been informed of my existence, no one had really confirmed it. Even though I had been in the park with Steve the week before, and went to Macy’s with Tony even earlier, no photographer had been able to get a picture about me. I made a note to talk to Tony about this and form some sort of game plan. I would likely have to step out into the spotlight eventually, and he was the best person to get me ready for it.

After the third or fourth day of being well enough to do whatever I wanted, yet not leaving my room for anything besides food, I found myself wide awake at 3am, watching The Asylum’s _Sherlock Holmes_ in my Iron Man pajamas with Bixby sitting on my head. I had reached a whole new level of bored and slightly depressed. I assume that this is the point when most people turn to alcohol, but as you’ve probably noticed, I’m not most people.

“Come on, Bix,” I said, putting down my laptop and picking up my bear. “Let’s go bake some cookies.”

Yes, cookies. Because, come on, baking cookies; that was a completely normal thing to be doing at three o’clock in the morning. With Bixby in my arms, I walked down to the kitchen; Tony had managed to get everything repaired while I was sick (everyone was amazed that I slept through all the noise) and I was looking forward to testing it out. Though he’d said he’d wanted to remodel the kitchen, Tony had left everything in the same place, only replacing the cabinets that had been damaged and putting in new countertop. That was okay by me, because I knew where things were. Mostly.

I set Bixby down on the island and went over to one of the cupboards; when I’d tried to make pancakes before, I noticed a cookbook that was very familiar to me. I didn’t know why Tony had a copy of “1001 Cookie Recipes: The Ultimate A-To-Z Collection of Bars, Drops, Crescents, Snaps, Squares, Biscuits, and Everything That Crumbles”, but I was thrilled to have found it. I’d had my own copy back where I came from; it had been a gift from my paternal grandfather and his wife and it was the only gift I’d ever gotten from them that I felt like they’d actually put some thought into, rather than it being something they had gotten from someone else and were giving to me to get rid of it.

I flipped to the page I needed, a recipe for Chocolate Chip cookies, and hoped that I’d be lucky enough to find everything I needed. While I was looking for ingredients, I noticed the coffee pot on the counter. It was calling to me. Who didn’t want a good cup of coffee while they were baking cookies at 3am? I postponed my ingredient hunt long enough to brew a pot of coffee, then went back to finding everything.

The one thing I always loved about the recipe I was about to use was its ability to be customized to fit anyone’s tastes. The key to that was in two ingredients: instant pudding mix and flavored chips. Though the recipe called specifically for vanilla pudding and chocolate chips, I learned early on that both could be changed to create all different flavor combinations. Some of my favorites included butterscotch pudding with chocolate chips, chocolate pudding with peanut butter chips and, as crazy as it sounded, pistachio pudding with cherry chips.

Much to my surprise and delight, I found two boxes of pudding mix, one chocolate and the other butterscotch, and two bags of chips, one chocolate and the other white chocolate. Though I am a chocoholic, the combination of chocolate pudding and chocolate chips tends to be too much chocolate for me, so I ruled that out right away. I also wanted to save the regular chocolate chips for the next time I made pancakes, knowing Steve would enjoy that. I grabbed the butterscotch pudding and white chocolate chips, along with the other things I would need, preheated the oven and got to work. I had just reached into the fridge to grab milk and eggs when I heard a voice behind me.

“Ooo, coffee!” I had an egg in my hand; I turned around quickly and threw it at whoever was behind me. Clint somehow managed to catch the egg without breaking it.

“Dude,” I said, letting out the breath I’d been holding. “Not cool. Seriously.”

“Sorry,” he replied, setting the egg down and strolling over to the coffee pot, pouring himself a cup before taking a seat at the island, right next to where I was working. “Didn’t mean to startle you, I just heard someone down here and then I smelled the coffee… what are you doing up this late, kiddo?” I shrugged my shoulders, combining my dry ingredients into a bowl.

“Couldn’t sleep.”

“So you decided to bake cookies?”

“Yup; any requests while I’m at it?”

“No, no, what you’ve got going looks good.” He dipped a teaspoon into the canister of sugar I had out, filling it with a small mound of sugar, which he dumped into his coffee. He then repeated the process _twice_ and added milk before finally taking a sip. I shook my head, resisting the urge to roll my eyes. “What?”

“I didn’t say anything,” I informed him, combining my wet and dry ingredients together.

“You had a look,” he said. I shrugged, mixing the white chocolate chips into the bowl.

“There was no look.”

“There was a definite amused look.”

“No idea what you’re talking about.”

“Uh-huh…” I shrugged again, rolling the dough into small balls and placing them on a cookie sheet, which went into the oven once it was filled. I set the timer, rinsed off my hands and poured my own cup of coffee, adding a little milk before taking a sip. Clint raised an eyebrow.

“What?”

“That’s all you add?” he asked, surprised.

“Mhm. Flavored creamer if I have it, but normally just milk.” I looked at him, grinning a little. “Out of curiosity, did you add any coffee to your cream and sugar?”

“Maybe a little,” Clint replied, taking a sip from his cup. “Mmm, sugar.”

“Ugh; tainting good Italian Roast with sugar.” He laughed, shaking his head.

“You sound like Coulson; you two should go get coffee together sometime.”

“We have, actually. When I was living at SHIELD, he and I would have a cup together when he wasn’t too busy.” He nodded, each of us taking another sip.

“I'll drink it anyway I can get it in the field, which usually is half cold and crappy, but home the more flavor the better.”

“You can’t taste the flavor of the coffee,” I protested. “You’ve added too much sugar.”

“Sugar is a flavor.” I rolled my eyes.

“Try doing a flavored coffee with a contrasting flavored creamer…”

“Mmm, sugar.”

“I’m serious; try a vanilla coffee with an amaretto creamer, or a pumpkin coffee with Irish cream… one that I tried that I didn’t think would work? A _blueberry_ flavored coffee with caramel macchiato creamer.” Clint grinned, shaking his head a little. “What?”

“This argument sounds rehearsed,” he told me.

“This argument is _not_ rehearsed, it’s just been had many times, just ask…” I stopped; he couldn’t ask Kay about this argument, which I’d had with her so many times. Kay didn’t exist here. I suddenly became very interested in making more dough balls and putting them on cookie sheets.

“Being happy in one place but missing someone that's in another place isn't fun.” It wasn’t a question; Clint was stating a fact. “My brother, Barney and I were in the circus together,” he told me. “Leaving him and the circus sort of sucked, but I was happier away from it…” He scratched his cheek. “Barn became a super villain and tries to kill me once or twice a year; we don't do reunions… remind me to bring that up at the next house meeting before it gets to be that time of year?” I nodded, wondering exactly when “that time of year” was.

“I had a brother once…” Clint knew this of course, I’d mentioned it to him before, that night in the SHIELD firing range.

“Older or younger?”

“A year older.”

“Cats and dogs, or best friends?”

“It… it was complicated.” Complicated was by far the best, and nicest, way to describe my relationship with Jim. “My mom will always remember him as an angel, because he was the one that stayed with her after she and my father got divorced, but I… I don't always remember him that way.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah…” I took a deep breath. I didn’t talk about this much, but Clint was easy to talk to. I _wanted_ to talk to him about things. “I… I've always just kind of gone with the flow of things. My parents divorced, my father remarried quickly… and I went with it. Jim didn't and… he didn't like that I wasn't mad about it…” I was vaguely aware of the fact that I was shaking, rubbing my shoulder; the same shoulder my brother had punched so many times, as hard as he could. “I don't want to talk about this anymore…” I heard Clint set his coffee cup down, felt the vibrations of the chair he was sitting in scoot across the floor. Moments later, his arms were around me, hugging me tight.

The men of the Avengers were a very huggy bunch. Not that I’m complaining, mind you, but don’t let anyone tell you any differently.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I was trying to make you feel better, not worse…” I returned his embrace.

“I know,” I told him. “I… I loved my brother. I didn’t like him very much, but I did love him. Jim died just as he and I were starting to get along. He had a mild case of epilepsy, I don’t really know the specifics, never asked… but he had a seizure on his way to work one day and he… didn’t come out of it.” I buried my face in Clint’s chest as I felt his embrace tighten. “I wasn’t ready to forgive him for a lot of things, I’m still not; but if I ever _am_ ready to, I can’t. Because he’s gone.”

“If you’re ready to forgive him someday,” Clint replied, “you can do that. Even if he’s not ‘here’ for you to do it; you just need to be ready for it.” We stood there a few moments, just hugging; tears were falling down my cheeks, but I did my best to ignore them.

“You know,” I said finally. “I’m not used to this?” Clint looked down at me, a slightly worried expression on his face.

“The hugging? Because I can stop…”

“I will admit, I have gotten hugged more in the month I’ve been here than I have in my entire lifetime, but that’s not what I mean.”

“What do you mean, then?” I smiled, a little sheepishly.

“I’m not used to having a big brother that I like…” Clint chuckled a little, kissing the top of my head.

“I’m not used to having a sister, _period_ ,” he informed me. “New experience for both of us.” Before I could reply, the timer went off on the oven; I hurried over, took out the finished batch and put another one in.

“Don’t touch,” I said, slapping Clint’s hand when he went to grab one. “They need to cool a little.”

“That’s no fun,” he replied, mock pouting.

“You’ll thank me for this.” Exactly one minute later, because that does make a difference, I removed two cookies from the baking sheet and placed them on a plate, handing it to Clint. “Still warm; buon appetito.” Clint grinned, picking up a cookie and taking a huge bite. “So, what do you think?”  He looked at me, a broad grin on his face.

“The rest of the team might not be getting any.” I laughed, shaking my head. “Seriously, Kiddo, these are delicious.”

“Might not be getting any what?” I looked over my shoulder; Natasha was standing in the doorway, wearing a silky looking bathrobe, a bemused look on her face.

“Cookies,” I replied. “That Clint will be sharing whether he likes it or not.” Before Clint could protest, another voice joined the conversation.

“I smell coffee!” Thor’s voice boomed long before he actually entered the kitchen. “And did I hear something about cookies? Are they the small chocolate-y discs with the luscious creamy center?”

“They’re butterscotch with white chocolate chips,” I told him as I put the first batch of cookies onto a plate. “And yes, there is coffee.”

“Do you often make cookies at four in the morning, Stark?” Natasha asked me. I shrugged, putting more dough balls onto the cookie sheet I’d just emptied.

“When the mood suits me, Agent Romanov.” She raised an eyebrow.

“You can call me Natasha.”

“And you can call me Sarah.” She nodded, grabbing a cookie from the tray. Thor had poured himself and Natasha a cup of coffee and was eating what may have been his third cookie in as many seconds.

By far, it was the weirdest Friday morning in the history of Friday mornings, but I’d managed to gain a brother and a plate full of cookies; there was no way I was going to complain.


	21. Chapter 21

I caught a nap on the couch later that morning, after everyone had headed to SHIELD to do whatever it was they did when they weren’t saving the world from Doom Bots or psychotic demi-gods. I didn’t really want to ask what that was; in this case, oblivion—and full deniability—was a good thing.

“Jarvis?” I asked, stretching out a little.

“Yes, Miss Stark?” came the prompt reply. I smiled as I got to my feet, grabbing Bixby off the couch before walking towards my room.

“How much trouble do you think I’d get in if I went for a walk?”

“By trouble, I assume you’re asking how upset Mr. Stark and Captain Rogers will be if you decide to wander the city alone?”

“And Director Fury, we can’t forget him.” I tossed Bixby onto my bed and took off my pajamas; I then slipped into a pair of dark blue denim capris with an Iron Man t-shirt (because, let’s face facts here: there is no bigger fangirl in the Avengers Mansion than me). “I’m stir-crazy, Jarvis. I need something else to do besides sit in my room and play Angry Birds.”

“While I quite understand your feelings, Miss Stark, I feel that I should inform you that all parties mentioned would likely be upset if you went out in New York without some accompaniment, even more so if something were to happen.”

“Yeah, I know.” I let out a sigh. “I need something to do, Jarvis. Any suggestions at all?” Before he could answer, I heard the doorbell ring. “Jarvis, who’s at the door?”

“It appears to be a delivery person, Miss Stark.” Before I could ask, Jarvis up footage from the front door security camera on my television; as he said, it appeared to be a delivery man, complete with brown overalls and a baseball cap that was hiding his face from view, holding a clipboard. My eyes narrowed slightly.

“Jarvis,” I said, “make sure the house is locked down; don’t talk to the guy, just let him wait. Keep the video feed up on screen.”

“Of course, Miss Stark.” I stared at the television for a moment, biting my bottom lip in thought. While I could have called Tony or Steve, I didn’t want to bother them while they were working. The same went for _anyone_ I knew here, really, especially if it turned out I was just being paranoid.

However, there was one person I knew I _had_ to call. My handler.

No one had ever specifically said that I had a handler, but why would they? I was, mostly, a civilian; yes, my cover story was that I was Tony Stark’s daughter, but I wasn’t a superhero and I didn’t work for SHIELD. That didn’t stop me from noticing that there was one person, besides Tony, that made sure I had everything I needed no matter what. And if I was going to call anyone, it would be him.

“Jarvis?”

“Yes, Miss Stark?”

“Call Agent Coulson.” The delivery man remained at the front door while I waited for Phil to answer his phone; he rang the doorbell again, but he was not leaving.

“Miss Stark, is there a problem?” I relaxed slightly as I heard his voice fill the air around me.

“I’m not sure,” I admitted. “It could be nothing, but… do you have a way to see the security cameras here at the mansion?”

“I do; what do you want me to look at?”

“The delivery man at the front door.” I heard him press a few keys.

“Looks pretty normal to me,” he said, but there was a cautious tone to his voice, almost suspicious.

“You see it too.” It wasn’t a question; I was certain he saw the same thing I did.

“See what?” His tone changed slightly; the suspicion was still there, but there was also a hint of intrigue; he definitely saw _something_ , now he wanted to know if we were seeing the same thing.

“The clipboard; it bothers you too, doesn’t it?” He chuckled.

“Yeah, actually, it does.” It was 2012; I hadn’t seen a delivery man with a clipboard in at least two years and I hailed from Redneckia, New York. My eyes remained fixed upon the delivery man while Phil and I talked. He rang the doorbell again before turning away from the door. Before walking away, his hand grasped the level style door handle, jiggling it up and down. “Did you see that?”

“Yeah, he just checked the door handle… bet you twenty bucks he comes back with something break the lock. Or the door.”

“No bet,” Coulson replied; I could hear him get up from his desk and start down the hall. “I’d love to know what it is about you that attracts trouble.”

“Once you figure it out, let me know; I’ll do my best to change it…” I was nervous, and I didn’t care who knew it. It didn’t matter that I’ve survived Doom Bots and a demi-god; danger was danger and there was no reason not to be worried about it. “What do you want me to do?”

“Where are you?” I didn’t answer; the delivery man was back at the door and he was sticking something around the door handle. Something white with wires sticking out. “Sarah?”

“He’s got C4,” I told him. “He’s going to blow the door open…”

“Jarvis, cut the feed.” I blinked a few times as the television went black. “Sarah, focus; where are you now?” I took a deep breath.

“Second floor, in my bedroom.” I grabbed my phone off my bedside table; if the man got into the house, I didn’t want him to hear anything Coulson would be telling me to do. “Jarvis, switch the conversation over to my handset.”

“Done, Miss Stark,” I hear him say from the phone as I put it up to my ear.

“You need to get down to Tony’s workshop,” Coulson said. “It’s the most secure place in the house.”

“Yeah,” I replied, sticking my head out of my door. “It’s so secure, I don’t know how to get to it.”

“Jarvis?”

“Go down the hallway, Miss Stark,” the AI replied. “Opposite direction of the stairs.” I stepped out of my room just as an explosion went off downstairs. “Oh dear…”

“What am I looking for, Jarvis?” I asked as I sprinted down the hall.

“The door on the end wall, Miss Stark; it leads to Mr. Stark’s private elevator.” I found the wall. There was no door that I could see.

“Am I going to be able to get into the elevator?”

“Of course Miss Stark, just put your hand on the wall.” I did as I was instructed, trying to ignore the footsteps coming up the stairs. The words “Access Granted” appeared above my hand and the wall slid open, allowing me to dart into the elevator.

“I’m assuming Tony took a scan of my hand while I was asleep?”

“That is correct, Miss Stark.”

“Hey, you!” The delivery man was at the top of the stairs and had spotted me; he was running towards the elevator.

“Jarvis!” I cried. “Jarvis, close the door!”

 The door slid closed instantly and the elevator started down. A moment later, it stopped. 


	22. Chapter 22

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so… this chapter comes with a trigger warning for… I guess molestation is the best way to put it. Like I said in the first chapter, there’s a lot of stuff in this fic that comes from my real life and this chapter touches on something I don’t really talk about. So… yeah. Thanks for not running off screaming.

“Jarvis,” I said as calmly as I possibly could. “Jarvis, _please_ tell me the elevator didn’t stall…”

“The elevator did not stall, Miss Stark,” Jarvis replied. “It would seem that someone has cut the power to the house; everything is off line.”

“Oh, great… Phil, are you still there?”

“I’m still here, Miss Stark,” he replied.

“You were calling me Sarah five minutes ago,” I reminded him. “I preferred that, I really did.”

“Are you alright?”

“No, no I’m not. I’m trapped in a small, dark metal box and all I can do is wait for the guy who _blew up the front door_ to find me.” Normally I would be pacing back and forth, trying to calm myself down, but in this case reminding myself how small of an area I was in wouldn’t calm me at all.

“Miss Stark…”

“Agent Coulson,” I said, losing my patience. “I’m very close to a panic attack, partially because I’m trapped in an elevator, but also because I just realized there are _two_ people out there and only one of me in here and you talking to me like I’m one of your agents is _not_ helping me… so I’m hanging up.”

“Wait, wha…” I ended the call there, closing my eyes. I didn’t like being here. I didn’t like it at all. I shook my head quickly; now wasn’t the time for panic. I needed to get out of there.

“Jarvis?” I asked, sitting down in the corner of the elevator; I quickly switched my phone over to speaker, sick of holding it against my ear. “Are you still with me?”

“Yes, Miss Stark,” he replied.

“Good… Jarvis, I need to know how they shut down the house.”

“It appears that someone cut the power lines outside of the mansion.” Before I asked, he pulled up footage onto my screen; it was from about the time the elevator stopped, of a man on one of the electric poles outside.

“Make a note to tell Tony about that.” I bit my lip, thinking. “Why cut the power, Jarvis… would that disable the security system?”

“No, Miss Stark; if there is a loss of power to the mansion, everything goes on lockdown.”

“Bet they didn’t know that…”

“Miss?”

“They probably thought if they cut the power, they’d be able to get into the workshop and take whatever they wanted.”

“That is indeed a reasonable hypothesis.”

“Thanks Jarvis.”

“Your heart rate seems to be quite high, Miss Stark...”

“I hate that you know that,” I admitted, a small smile curling my lips.

“Is something wrong?” I hesitated, but only a moment; what harm would it do, telling Jarvis?

“When I was a kid,” I replied. “Probably six or seven years old, my brother thought it would be funny to hold me ransom for a candy bar.”

“Your brother was a criminal?” I laughed.

“My brother was a year older than me, Jarvis; he wasn’t a criminal, just a dumb ass.”

“I see.” He didn’t really, I could tell.

“Anyway, I was okay with the idea at first, because he promised to share. I stopped being okay with it when he shut me inside our toy chest.”

“Oh my…”

“Yeah… I don’t remember how long I was trapped in there; my mother had been outside and my father was at work, so there was no one to hear my screaming for help. It wasn’t until long after I’d cried myself to sleep that someone finally found me.”

“It’s good that you were found, Miss Stark.”

“Yeah, I guess.”

“You don’t think so?”

“Not really… it’s just that…” I sighed, shaking my head. “No one believed that I was scared… hell, probably the worst part was my father telling me I couldn’t have been too scared, because I fell asleep…”

“I believe he is what Mr. Stark would call an ‘asshole’.” I laughed.

“Oh yeah, that was Robert all right… but since then, I haven’t liked the dark and hated being in tight places unless I had to hide in them. If there are too many people in an elevator, I’ll take another one; depending on the size of the elevator, I might not get in at all…”

“You are claustrophobic?”

“Yeah,” I replied. “And being in here isn’t helping things.”

“I am sorry, Miss Stark. Is there anything I can do?”

“Short of getting me out of here? I… you could just listen to me? I tend to forget about things when I start rambling, maybe I can forget I’m stuck here…”

“I would be more than happy to, Miss Stark.”

I talked with Jarvis for I don’t know how long, about anything that came to mind:

Getting a contact high at the first concert I ever went to; I was so sick the day after, that I never tried smoking _anything._

My obsession with professional wrestling in high school and my crush on Shane McMahon, even when he was a heel.

I spent my senior class trip to Myrtle Beach in tears because the boy I had a crush on teased me mercilessly the entire time; when my brother found out, he threatened to call his friends and ‘throw the little fucker a blanket party’… I don’t know if he ever really did.

Becca was my first college roommate and she was a complete bitch; everything had to be her way or she would whine about it. And then there was the fact she climbed on top of me while I was sleeping and felt me up as she tried to talk me into a threesome with her and her friend. After the friend I told _laughed_ at me, I tried to pretend it never happened.

I don’t drink because any kind of alcohol makes my heart race like I ran a mile in two minutes and I’m worried I’ll be a mean drunk like my father and I wouldn’t subject _anyone_ to that, ever.

“I don’t think you could be like him if you tried, Kiddo.” I let out a gasp, looking around.

“Clint?” I asked. “Where are you?”

“On your phone,” he replied. “You never actually hung up on Coulson earlier, just muted him. We got Jarvis to unmute it for us.”

“Oh great,” I muttered. “You heard all that then.”

“Every word.”

“Would I be correct in assuming that it’s not just you listening?”

“Yeah, Tasha and Bruce are here too. Thor went after the guy that broke into the mansion and his partner, Tony and Steve are on their way back.”

“They don’t have to do that, I’m fine where I am.”

“No you’re not.”

“Sure I am; what better place to die of embarrassment than alone in an ele…” The elevator suddenly jerked. “Holy shit!”

“What’s wrong?” Natasha asked.

“The elevator just moved… did you guys restore the power?”

“Not yet,” Clint replied. “That’s why Tony and Steve are returning, Tony’s the only one that can bypass the security.” Another jerk, another curse from me. “What’s happening?”

“Oh, nothing much,” I told him. “I’m pretty sure I’m going to die in a horrendous elevator accident, though.”

“That’s not funny, Kiddo.”

“Good, I’m not joking.” I looked up at the ceiling, wishing I had x-ray vision. “Are we sure there were only two guys?”

“As far as we know,” Bruce said. “We won’t know for sure until Thor and Coulson return.” I blinked a couple times.

“Where did Coulson go?”

Before anyone could answer, a panel from the ceiling fell down and crashed at my feet, leaving a hole in the ceiling. Seconds later, Phil Coulson himself dropped through the hole, landing in a slight crouch in front of me.

“Sarah?” he asked, moving to sit next to me. “Are you alright?” I smiled a little, nodding.

“Yeah, Phil,” I replied. “I’m alright.” He grinned a little, taking off the backpack he was wearing. He pulled out a bottle of water and handed it to me.

“Drink that; you’ve been in here for three hours, you must be thirsty by now.”

“Damn, three hours?” I took the bottle, taking a sip. “What now? Shimmy up the rope you came down?” Phil shook his head, taking a second bottle of water out of his bag and taking a drink.

“Unfortunately, no; the cord rubbed on a sharp edge and snapped. That first jolt you felt was me grabbing onto the elevator cables so I didn’t fall fifty feet.”

“So, we’re stuck here together?”

“Yeah. Hope that’s alright.” I smiled.

“Perfectly.”


	23. Chapter 23

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for not updating, I’ve had a rough couple of days and couldn’t find any time to write. Hope you guys are in the mood for some Coulson and Sarah adorables :D
> 
> Don't forget, you can [ask Sarah questions](http://asksarahstark.tumblr.com) now! Mostly cooking/baking questions right now; I'm amused xD

Phil and I sat back and waited for a rescue. I ended the call with Clint—for real this time—to save battery life and we… we just talked. And it was brilliant; after he took a moment to officially debrief me regarding the Loki incident (“You really don’t have _any_ sense of self-preservation, do you?”  “I swear, I’ve told you all this at least a million times by now.”) we discussed black holes, Tim Burton movies and, surprisingly, Doctor Who. His favorite Doctor is Three, while mine is Eleven; we both agree that Six is better in the Big Finnish audios and Inspector Spacetime is hilarious.

I told him about the Iron Man cartoon I watched as a kid (the fact that cartoon Tony had long hair and a jerry curl in the second season brought a smile to his face) and he told me about his Captain America collection.

When we ran out of fun things to talk about, I became bored enough to sing Billy Ray Cyrus.

“I know the words by heart, I know every line! From ‘this ain’t easy’, to ‘you’ll get along just fine’! I know every comma, every question mark! No, I don’t have to look; I know the words by heart!” Phil gave me a sarcastic slow clap, to which I sarcastically bowed. “Thank you, my adoring public.”

“I never would have pegged you for a country music fan,” he told me. I shrugged my shoulders.

“I…” I paused, thinking about it for a moment. “I’m not really? I mean, I’m not a fan of a lot of the stuff they have nowadays, honestly, I might as well just listen to a pop station.” I squirmed a little bit against the wall behind me, needing to stretch a little. “Honestly, I’m just a fan of good music, no matter what the genre is. But also? It’s what my father listened to when I was a kid; country, Bruce Springsteen and AC/DC. And I still listen to _that_ from time to time, but only when I’m alone…”

“Why’s that?”

“I sing along.”

“So?” I shrugged again and if I was fidgeting more out of being uncomfortable than discomfort, no one was going to call me on it. Hopefully.

“I don’t sing in front of people. Unless, you know, other people is ‘the Hulk’, and I’m trying to calm him down.”

“Director Fury wants to record you singing for future Hulk attacks.”

“Yeah, no. I’m thinking no.” I made a face. “I sound worse recorded than I do live.”

“I don’t believe that.”

“No one but me seems to.” Things went quite for a minute or two after that.

“That roommate you had,” he said suddenly. “The one in college; you said her name was Becca?”

“Yeah.” Please don’t ask me more, I thought, please don’t make me think about that any more than I already have today…

“Does she have a last name?” I thought about that for a moment, trying to figure out why he’d want to know that… after a moment, I smiled, shaking my head.

“You do realize,” I said, “that even _if_ she exists in this universe, she wouldn’t be the same one I knew and, therefore, you would be extracting revenge on someone that didn’t deserve it.” He thought about it for a second, then shrugged.

“Yeah, I guess you have a point there.”

“I appreciate the thought though,” I assured him.

“Least I could do,” he replied. We were both silent for a minute. “About what happened earlier, when we were on the phone…”

“I overreacted,” I admitted. “I do that from time to time, especially when I’m stuck in an elevator.” I looked up at the ceiling. “Got to admit, that hole you made is helping.”

“Good to know. Still…” He took a swig from his water bottle. “You listen better than most of my agents; makes it hard to remember you _aren’t_ one.” I shrugged my shoulders.

“You haven’t really given me any orders I disagree with, but I can start ignoring you if it would help?”

“No, you listening works for me; just surprises me that you do.”

“You’re my handler, aren’t you?” He turned to me, an amused yet surprised look on his face.

“Who told you that?”

“No one.”

“Then how…”

“Seriously?” I asked, raising my eyebrows. “It’s not _painfully_ obvious to you that I tend to notice things? Really?”

“You seeing the clipboard was a pleasant surprise…” I rolled my eyes.

“I swear I told you what I was studying in college.”

“You said it was sociology…”

“With an emphasis in _Criminal Justice_.” I grinned. “The professor for my Criminal Investigation class drilled it into us to look for everything and anything. Hell, the first night, we were ‘investigating’ a robbery at a gas station…” I shook my head. “The point being, I notice things. And I noticed that you ‘handle’ anything I need.”

“That’s not really the definition of ‘handler’, Sarah,” Phil replied, smiling a little. I shrugged my shoulders.

“Doesn’t make it any less true.” I drank the last of my water, balancing the empty bottle top down on my fingertips. More silence followed, at least until the bottle fell to the floor.

“Yeah,” he agreed. “Fury assigned me to you the moment you got here…”

“You would have taken me anyway,” I replied. “I’m adorable.” Phil laughed. Actually _laughed_. “Oh my god, I broke you…”

“You broke Agent?” Tony’s voice filled the elevator seconds before it began to move, ascending back to the floor I’d started on.

“He’s laughing!” I cried in mock hysterics. “I don’t know what to do!” The elevator doors slid open; Tony was standing in front of them, his mouth hanging open slightly.

“What did you _do_ to him?” he asked, the incredulous expression not leaving his face.

“I just said that I’m adorable,” I replied. “And then he started laughing!”

“You’re laughing at truth, Agent Coulson? How dare you!”

“It’s not that,” Phil replied, shaking his head. “Its…” He looked at me, smiling albeit a little sadly. “That’s the first positive thing I’ve heard you say about yourself, and sound like you actually _mean_ it…” I blinked a few times.

And then, what the hell; I started laughing too.


	24. Chapter 24

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: This chapter contains a Character Death.

“So what were those ass-clowns after?” I asked. We were all seated around the island in the kitchen, eating pop tarts and drinking coffee. Apparently, that’s what I crave most after being stuck in an elevator for most of the day; who’d have guessed? “I’m assuming something down in the workshop, or that Picasso in the hallway?” Everyone was quiet; Thor (who has this habit of appearing out of nowhere, it’s kind of distracting) had stopped moving mid pop tart-into-coffee dunk, Tony stopped messing with… whatever the hell he was working on, Steve and Phil stopped shaking their heads at him and they all looked at me with complete disbelief. “What? Am I forgetting something?”

“Sare,” Steve replied; he’d never called me Sare before. I liked it. “They were after _you_.” I blinked. Twice.

“Wait, what?” Phil rolled his eyes.

“The Hulk happening at six am was just another day,” he remarked. “But tell her she’s wanted by kidnappers and that’s what confuses her.”

“Why the hell wouldn’t it?” I asked, tilting my head slightly. “What’s so special about me?”

“Pax,” Tony said. “Sweetheart. You’re not Sarah Cornell anymore; you’re Sarah _Stark_.” I blinked again.

“Oh, right.”

“How does one manage to forget such a thing, Lady Sarah?” Thor asked, taking a bite of his now soggy pop tart.

“You’re killing me with the ‘Lady’ thing, Thor,” I muttered; I swear I saw Tony grinning out of the corner of my eye. “And I’m not used to it yet; it’s not like anyone goes out of the way to broadcast it.”

“Maybe we should.” Everyone looked over at Tony; I, personally, had my mouth hanging open slightly. “No one sees you out with us,” he continued. “They don’t get that you’re surrounded by superheroes twenty four-seven.”

“She’s not surrounded by superheroes twenty four-seven,” Phil pointed out before I had a chance to; Tony looked genuinely surprised by this. “That’s why they were able to get in here today.”

“No, they were able to get in here today because I never thought I’d need doors that would withstand C4…”

“We can try spraying the next door with truck bed liner,” I suggested. “I saw it on Mythbusters once.”

“We’ll look into that…” Tony looked over at me, surprised. “You… you really don’t get out much with us, do you?” I shook my head.

“At _all_ , really… there was the Doom Bots, and then the Hulk, and then _Loki_ …”

“Well, that settles it then! Starting tomorrow, you are with someone at all times. Me, Steve, Clint… Hell, hang out with the Hulk if you want to. Point is, you with someone! And out of the mansion, you really need to get out more.”

“She was thinking about taking a walk this morning, Sir,” Jarvis said.

“Traitor!” I yelled at the ceiling, smiling a little.

“Starting tomorrow,” Tony said again, putting a hand on mine and giving it a squeeze. “You hang out with us.”

The next morning, I went into SHIELD with Clint and Natasha; Tony and Steve, having finished what they needed to in London, were planning to join us later and Bruce was still traveling somewhere, so they were on babysitting duty.

“I resent being called a babysitter,” Clint told me as we walked from the car Phil sent for us into SHIELD HQ. “I’m not babysitting you.”

“Okay,” I replied. “What are you doing then?”

“I’m taking my kid sister to work with me.”

“You work at a top secret military organization, Clint; I’m pretty sure they don’t have a ‘bring you sister to work day’ here.”

“We do now, Miss Stark.” I turned around.

“Good morning, Director Fury,” I replied with a smile.  “I’m sure Clinton here plans to stick me in a corner cubicle with a coloring book and a juice box.” Fury smiled; it was slightly terrifying.

“You’ll be coming with me.”

“Sir,” Clint started to protest. “I promised Stark…”

“It’s alright, Clint,” I said quickly. “I’m sure Director Fury wants to ask me about my cookie recipe.” Clint didn’t seem to think my joke was funny, but he nodded and watched silently as the Director and I walked away. “This isn’t about my cookie recipe, is it?”

“No, Miss Stark… it’s about why we can’t send you home.” My smile faded quickly.

“Yeah… I had a feeling you weren’t telling me something.” We stepped into a room. “So, what’s the deal, did I step into a TARDIS by… mistake…”

Inside the room was a large screen. On the large screen was video of someone’s funeral; the parlor was filled to the brim with yellow roses and white carnations. No one was wearing black. It surprised me, the only time I’d ever seen that was my great-grandmother Edna’s funeral; she’d asked for everyone to wear red, because she always loved cardinals. Everyone here was dressed in t-shirts, each with some sort of geeky picture or saying. “Why yes, the World Does Revolve Around Me”, “You Never Forget Your First Doctor”, a few different Marvel and DC shirts… everyone was laughing. They were obviously saddened, but they were somehow still happy. Honestly, it’s how I’d want my funeral to be.

That’s when I saw the casket.

“Oh… oh my god.” I saw my own body, lying in the casket… and I remembered what happened.

***

“Which one of us thought this was a good idea?” I asked.

“You!” my two companions replied. It was after midnight, and the three of us (myself and my two roommates, Kaila and Sally) were walking back from a Walmart run.

“Hey, you guys agreed to it!” I reminded them. “You were all “Fuck yeah, Paxie, let’s go get some stuff for pancakes!” Neither of you wanted to be the responsible one and say we could just go in the morning!”

“You’re the voice of reason, Paxie,” Kaila replied, brushing a strand of teal streaked hair out of her eyes.

“What she said,” Sally agreed as she struggled to keep pace with Kaila and I; we were taller than her, our strides longer. I slowed my pace to match hers just before we reached the cross walk.

“Man, it’s freaking busy tonight!” I remarked, looking at the cars fly by us as we waited for the light to change. “Did we win another championship or what?” I smiled a little; though I wasn’t really into sports, I was proud that my little UW school had won five championships in 2011/2012 alone.

“Probably,” Sally groaned. “I’ll never sleep tonight.” I was about to reply when someone bumped into us; a taller but younger man, staggering like it was his first day walking and smelling like he slept in a barrel of whisky. “Hey watch it!” Normally I would have joined her in her protestations—the guy was clearly a drunken ass—but I was too focused on the truck that was heading for the man.

“He’s not stopping,” I said a bit dumbly. “Hey… hey! He’s not stopping!” I could feel my legs quivering as I started to run towards the man in the street. “He’s not stopping!” I felt my palms rest against his back, saw him fly away from me, out of the way of the truck…

The last thing I saw was the lights coming towards me. The last thing I heard was my two friends screaming my name.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Be honest: how many of you thought I killed Coulson?


	25. Chapter 25

“These images come to us from Doctor Reed Richards,” a woman’s voice said. I have no idea who, I couldn’t take my eyes away from the screen. “He’s developed a type of observation window that can look into other dimensions, but not interact with them… we were also able to see your…”

“The truck that hit you was loaded with refrigerators,” Fury told me quickly, cutting the woman off. “You likely don’t remember seeing that before you…” He drew a breath, rather than finishing that sentence. “The fact of the matter is, Miss Stark, even if we _had_ the technology to send you back to your world, we couldn’t do it… because you don’t exist there anymore.” I stared at the screen for a moment longer, watching my friends and family say their goodbyes…

Then I turned and ran.

But this time, the running was different. This time, I was running _to_ something, rather than away. And it was just my luck that the something, or should I say some _one_ , I was running to was heading right for me.

“Dad!” Tony looked surprised, but he opened his arms and allowed me to run into them, returning my embrace.

“Hey, sweetheart, what’s…” I raised my eyes to look at him; he was looking behind me. “Jesus _Christ_ , Fury; you told her, didn’t you!”

“You knew?” I asked softly; his arms wrapped tighter around me, as though he thought I would run if he let me go. To be fair, he was probably right.

“Fury told me the same day he said we couldn’t send you home,” he replied, smoothing my hair. “We were supposed to be discussing the best way to tell you…”

“Prolonging it wasn’t going to do her any good, Stark,” Fury said coldly.

“How’d you do it? Bring her in and show her the funeral?”

“As a matter of fact…” I cleared my throat.

“If you two are going to keep arguing, I’ll just go play in traffic or something.” I looked up at Tony, tears in my eyes. “Seriously, I just found out that I’m _dead_ , the last thing I want is to listen to you two bicker like little girls.”

“We don’t sound like little girls,” Tony protested.

“Nine, maybe ten years old. I’m seeing pigtails, frilly skirt.”

“You aren’t dead, Miss Stark,” Fury said flatly, prompting me to look over at him. “At the least not in _this_ universe. From what we can tell, there _was_ a trans-dimensional rift surrounding your location at the time of your… accident, and you were knocked into it. However, rather than sending all of you through, only part of you made it. The other part…”

“Is dead,” I finished. “You can say it; I’m not going to start crying… any more than I already am.”

“Yes, Miss Stark, the other part of you is dead. And buried.” He took a deep breath. “And it’s likely that even if we could send you back, you would end up in your own coffin and die anyway.”

“That doesn’t make any sense at all, you realize this; how could I possibly split into two parts?” I pulled away from Tony to face Fury completely. “If my body stayed behind in my universe, then all that would have come here would have been… for lack of a better term, a ghost.” I poked myself in the chest. “Not a ghost. Totally _not_ a ghost.”

“Didn’t you find it strange,” Fury replied, “that no one reacted to you appearing out of nowhere?” I shrugged my shoulders.

“I’m told it’s not unusual for people in New York to not notice things.”

“They didn’t notice you because they couldn’t _see_ you. When you arrived here, Miss Stark, you were a ghost; it wasn’t until you came into contact with Tony that you became solid again.”

“What? Why Tony?” Fury smiled; again, terrifying.

“Did you think your cover story was just a random happenstance, Miss Stark?” I nodded. “We took a DNA sample from you the day you arrived; it matched on enough points for you to be Tony Stark’s daughter. The residual energy from the rift was able to use Tony’s DNA to put you back together again.”

“So,” I said slowly. “You’re saying I regenerated?”

“If you really must use a Doctor Who reference, Miss Stark, then yes, you regenerated.”

“Hey, I’m all about putting this into terms I’ll actually understand…” I took a deep breath and let it out slow. I felt Tony’s hand rest on my shoulder, squeezing lightly.

“Are you alright, Pax?” he asked.

“No,” I admitted. “No, Dad, I’m not alright…” I turned to look at him, smiling slightly. “But at the same time… I’m very alright.” I laughed a little, shaking my head. “How weird is that?” He wrapped an arm around my shoulders, hugging me close. “You’re hugging me because you think I’m going to run off if you don’t, aren’t you?”

“Yes I am. Am I wrong?”

“Partially.”

“Oh?”

“I was going to run off to the nearest café; after the morning I’m having, I really want a latte and a Red Velvet cupcake.” I thought for a moment. “And then maybe hide down in the firing range. I haven’t been down there in a while.” Tony kissed the top of my head before releasing his embrace.

“Head down to the range, then,” he told me. “I’ll find you a cupcake…”

“A _Red Velvet_ cupcake.”

“A Red Velvet cupcake and a latte. Sound good?” I smiled, nodding.

“Yeah… sounds good.”

The walk down to the range was noisy. Not because of all the people around me, but because of the voices in my own head. Some told me I would never fit in here in this universe; others said I was finally where I was meant to be. Some said I was not wanted here; others said I was needed. I chose to believe that I _would_ fit in, that I _was_ needed because that made sense; why else would I be connecting with Tony like I was? Because this was where I belonged now.

I was going to miss my universe, the friends and family I had left behind, but my story there had ended. I died saving someone else’s life; there was honestly no better end than that.

This was home now and I was going to be okay.


	26. Chapter 26

From the personal diary of Captain Steven Rogers

It’s a little after 5am right now. Tony’s still asleep and I’m going to be heading out for a run soon, but I wanted to write this down so I would always remember it.

Last night, Sarah and Bruce made dinner for all of us in the Stark Tower kitchens. Different kinds of pancakes with eggs, bacon and whatever you wanted to drink. Not only can Sarah cook, but I also learned that chocolate chip pancakes are _delicious_.

We were in the limo, heading back to the mansion. I had my sketch pad out and was drawing Sarah, who was snuggled against Tony, fast asleep with a content smile on her face. I’m pretty sure all of us were trying not to stare. She insists that she’s twenty-five, technically older than me, but around Tony, she acts like a little kid. It’s often hard for me to reconcile this innocent looking _child_ with the woman who risked her life by luring a Doom Bot away from the general public, the woman who thought to ask why Bruce Hulked out rather than scream for help…

“What’s that look?” Tony asked suddenly. I looked up from my sketch and start to answer, when I notice that Tony wasn’t looking at me; he’s looking at Bruce, who has a saddened expression on his face.

“She…” he began, before shaking his head. “She’s a good kid… didn’t deserve a lot of the stuff that happened before coming here.”

“Like what?” I asked. I hadn’t really talked much with Sarah; she was Tony’s girl, no matter where she came from, Clint was her friend and now Bruce seemed to be as well… but I knew nothing about her. To be fair, neither did Thor and Natasha, but… she’s Tony’s girl, isn’t she? Tony’s my guy, so I should know something, shouldn’t I?

“I don’t know if it’s my place to say,” Bruce said. “What she told me… it was rather personal.”

“Her father physically abused her on at least one occasion.” Everyone’s eyes went to Natasha, who just shrugged her shoulders. “I was not told to keep that knowledge private, nor was Bruce.”

“Damn it, Tasha,” Clint muttered. “Hiding in the ceiling is _my_ thing.”

“Her father hit her,” I said dumbly. Natasha was still talking, retelling Sarah’s story (which I won’t record here) and I just stared at my sketch pad. That was something I would never understand; why did people have children if all they were going to do was hurt them?

“She doesn’t have to worry about him anymore,” Tony said, his voice firm, _angry_. I took note of how Sarah tensed when he spoke, her face twisting from peaceful into worried… no, not worried. _Scared_. Tony noticed this just as I did; he moved his hand to stroke her hair, which slowly calmed her down.

“Why doesn’t she?” Clint asked.

“Because we can’t send her back,” Tony replied, keeping his voice as calm as possible. “There’s no way for us to recreate the event that brought her here.”

“How can you be sure?” I asked. I was about to say that maybe Tony was being selfish, that maybe he just didn’t want to send her back, that he didn’t want to lose her… but then he looked at me. And the face he was giving me was one of complete sorrow.

“Because the event that sent her here was her death.” Everyone just stared at him for a moment, none of us knowing what to say.

“The report said she got sucked in through a portal,” Bruce said finally. “That’s what she told you and Coulson…”

“Yeah,” Tony replied, shaking his head. “Richards apparently invented a one way trans-dimensional window; he can look through it but no one can look back. He calibrated the visualizers using the…”

“I’m going to stop you now,” I said. “Say it in English.” Tony pouted slightly.

“He… punched the time Paxie showed up here into his computer and he was able to see what happened in her word just before she came here.”

“And he saw, what?” Thor asked. “Did this _father_ of hers…?” Tony shook his head before telling us what had happened; Sarah was walking home from the store late at night with some friends when a drunk stumbled out into the path of an oncoming truck. Sarah saved him, but had no time to save herself. We were all silent for a moment.

“Does she know?” Natasha asked finally. Tony shook his head. “You have to tell her…”

“Not yet. We will tell her, after we decide the best way to do it, but right now… right now, let her be happy.”

When we got back to the mansion, I helped Tony get Sarah up to her room and into bed. She woke briefly, muttered something about Memphis and fell back to sleep. Tony watched her for a moment, frowning a little.

“Am I doing the right thing?” he asked softly.

“Not telling her?” I asked. He nodded. “I think so.”

“Really?” I nodded.

“She just found out she can’t go home, Tony, and she ran. Who knows what she’d do if we told her _why_ …” I wrapped my arms around his shoulders, hugging him close. He leaned back against my chest and I kissed his cheek. “You’ll have to tell her eventually, but you know that.” He nodded. “There’s no reason not to let her get used to being trapped here before telling her why.”

“Yeah.” We stood there in silence for a moment, just watching her sleep. “…this is creepy, isn’t it?”

“Just a little,” I admitted. Before he could say anything more, I scooped him up. “Come on, Mr. Stark. It’s time for bed.” Tony grinned.

“Yes, sir Captain Rogers.”

“If you two are going to have sex, dear god, _please,_ do it in your own room.” We looked towards Sarah, who had buried her head under a pillow. “Seriously, I’m glad there’s still magic in your relationship; I don’t need to know that mom and dad are still having sex.”

Tony started laughing so hard that I almost dropped him.

It’s almost 5:30 now. I wonder if Sarah would want to go on a run with me… one way to find out.


	27. Chapter 27

“Kiddo, look out!” I stepped into the firing range just in time to barely miss getting hit by an arrow; two seconds later and it would have gotten my neck, rather than the wall above my shoulder. I looked at the arrow, blinking a few times.

“Clint, what the hell? Are you trying…” I looked in the direction the arrow came from and didn’t like what I was seeing; at the far end of the range, Clint’s legs were trapped underneath an overturned locker, his shoulder pinned to a wall by an arrow. Standing over him was a tall muscular man; his costume was similar to Hawkeye’s, except it was red where there was supposed to be purple. A bow was in one hand, an arrow in the other.

“Well, well,” he said, turning towards me. “Aren’t you a pretty little one?” I looked past him to Clint, shoving my hands into my pockets.

“I’m guessing this is Barney?”

“Yeah,” Clint replied. “I know, I said I was going to warn the team about this.”

“How did he even get in here? We’re a top secret government organization!”

“He was wearing someone else’s ID badge.”

“Was it Special Agent Galaga’s badge, or did he get fired?”

“Who…”

“Excuse me!” Barney yelled a bit angrily. “Can we get back to me killing you two?”

"Kiddo, run," Clint demanded, trying to dislodge the arrow from his shoulder. I shook my head.

"I can't…”

"This is not a time to be brave..."

"I'm not!” I yelled, quite aware of the fear in my own voice. “For once, I'm doing the self-preservation thing!" I took a hand out of my pocket long enough to point at the elder Barton before shoving my hand back in. "He has a bow in his hand! One that he likely used to pin you to that wall, meaning he's almost as good as you are! If I try to run, he'll kill me before I get out the door!"

"She hit a bulls eye there, little brother," Barney replied, nocking the arrow as though to prove his point. "She's special to you... who is she?"

"Leave her alone," Clint replied, still trying to pull the arrow out of his shoulder; whatever arrow Barney used was securely buried in the wall behind Clint. He was completely trapped. Barney aimed at him, looking ready to shoot again.

"My name is Sarah Stark!" I yelled quickly, getting him to look back to me. "You may know my dad, Tony? AKA, Iron Man?"

"What're you playing with in your pockets?" Barney demanded, aiming his bow at me. I was wondering if he'd ever notice.

"Just my phone," I replied casually. "I hit send while you were talking; someone's been listening in the whole time. No idea who, of course... should I take it out and look?" I pulled the phone out of my pocket and looked at the screen. "Ooh boy... today is not a good day for you, my friend."

The arrow he loosed hit just after I turn the phone towards him to show who I'd called; it went straight through the plastic and into my flesh, pinning my hand to the wall behind me.

"Barney!" Clint yelled over my screams. "Leave her alone!" Before Barney could reply, the entire firing range began to rumble. The Barton brothers looked around, then at each other... and then at me. I grinned.

"Now you've really done it."

Not two seconds later, a large green hand punched through the wall near the brothers, grabbing hold of Barney and pulling him back through the hole. A moment after that, Barney came back in through a completely new hole, landing on the floor halfway between me and Clint, accompanied by an ear splitting roar. He was followed by the man I’d somehow had the great fortune to call: Bruce Banner, who I’m assuming Hulked out the moment he realized Clint and I were in trouble.

Hulk wasted no time in ripping the locker off Clint’s legs and throwing it across the room with another loud roar. Clint snapped the arrow just before his shoulder, allowing him to slide off the projectile. Much to my relief, I was able to break the arrow as Clint had done (the arrow heads were impressive; the shafts, not so much) and get my hand free. I had a decent sized paisley cloth handkerchief in my pocket, which I used to wrap my hand. I’d need to get it looked at, but that would be okay for now.

“Thanks, big guy,” I heard Clint say, prompting me to look towards him. He was ignored; Hulk made his way over to me with an urgent speed that I did my best not to look worried about. “She’s hurt, big guy! Be careful!”

“Hey, buddy!” I said as cheerfully as I could manage. “Thanks for coming…” The Hulk roared loudly and that certainly shut me up. He then scooped me up in his arms and held me close, as he had that day in the kitchen.

“Angel,” he replied with a low rumble in his voice. I blinked in surprise; I’d never been called _that_ before. He carefully smoothed my hair with his giant hand and I couldn’t help smiling at him. “Angel okay?”

“I’m okay,” I assured him. “I’m okay, Clint’s okay, everything  is completely okay…”

Of course with fate being the cold hard bitch she was, that was the _exact_ moment that a squad of SHIELD agents in full riot gear stormed into the firing range through the first hole the Hulk had made, all of them looking ready to attack. Hulk realized this; he then made a completely new hole in the wall behind us, and ran off down the hallway, taking me with him.

“Hulk!” Clint yelled, running after us. “Hulk, wait!”

“Clint!” I yelled back. “I’m fine, make sure everyone knows that! I’ll call you when Bruce comes back!”

“You don’t have a phone, kiddo!”

“Small technicality!” Hulk and I were just about out the main doors, I had to finish talking fast. “Kick your brother in the nuts for me, I’ll talk to you later!”

Hulk continued to hold me close as he leapt across buildings in single bounds.  I wasn’t really sure where he was taking me, but I was completely certain that he was only trying to protect me. The way he’d called me Angel, the way he asked me if I was okay convinced me of that. He didn’t recognize the SHIELD agents who were responding to the incident and therefore didn’t know if they were trying to hurt me or not. To be fair, the SHIELD agents didn’t know if _Hulk_ was trying to me or not. It was a pretty confusing situation for everyone involved; hopefully, Clint was explaining things to everyone, letting them know that while I technically _was_ being kidnapped by the Incredible Hulk, it wasn’t really a bad thing. Surely, he planned to take me somewhere safe.

It was still surprising, however, when he brought me back to Avengers Mansion. He landed in the back yard, setting me down next to the pool.

“Angel _safe_ ,” he said matter-of-factly, nodding his head. He then turned away, looking like he was going to leave.

“Don’t…” He turned back to me, a confused look on his face. “Don’t go,” I begged softly. “Please don’t leave me here alone…”

I didn’t want to be alone; in the less than five hours that I’d been awake today, I learned that I could never return to my universe and I had an arrow shot through my hand by a crazed archer; the absolute last thing I wanted right now was to be alone.

Hulk sat down right where he’d been standing, picked me up carefully and cradled me in his arms again. I relaxed completely; no one was going to try anything while I was sitting in the arms of the Incredible Hulk. Anyone that did would likely not live long.

“Angel safe,” Hulk said again, looking down at me. His tone was more insistent than it had been before; he didn’t think I believed him.

“I know that, buddy,” I promised. “I’m here with you, aren’t I?” He chuckled a little, which was enough to make me chuckle as well.

“Paxie! Hulk!” Both of us looked over to the back door; Tony was standing there, a cardboard carrier filled with coffee cups in one hand, a small pastry box in the other. “I’ve got cupcakes and coffee, who wants some?” I looked up at Hulk, smiling.

“What do you say, bud?” I asked. “Wanna go have a cupcake?” He nodded.

“Hulk want cupcake, Angel.”


	28. Chapter 28

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, after almost a month since the last chapter post, Portal is coming to an end. I originally planned on this being a story I would update constantly, but here just seems like a good place to end this. Thanks to all who have stuck with me through this.

The next few weeks were... well, I can't really say they were normal, because "normal" was getting attacked by super villains and/or random kidnappers and things like that. But after the whole thing with Barney (who not only got away, but swore revenge on us all), things were actually... relaxed.

I finally started going to work with Tony; being his PA wasn't as hard as I thought it would be, but I have a feeling he was only behaving because someone (*cough* Steve *cough cough*) threatened him with some sort of bodily harm if he stressed me out too much. Steve is awesome like that.

When I wasn't working with Tony, I hung out with Clint in the firing range, with Bruce in his lab or in the gym with Natasha, who had been tasked with teaching me self defense; she said I was doing well for a beginner, which was nice... but I was still lonely; while I had family, I really had no friends.

And of course, that's when the universe decided to intervene.

"Come on." My wrist was grabbed, carefully, but urgently and I was pulled away from Tony's side.

"Darcy!" Tony called after her... us, really. "Make sure she's home by midnight!"

"She's too old for curfews, Stark!" Darcy called back. "We'll be back when we're good and ready!"

"Do I get a say in this?" I asked, though mostly rhetorically; good thing too, as the answer (from both Tony and Darcy) was "no". Darcy pulled me out to the parking garage, where a car was waiting for us and ushered me inside.

“Floor it, Happy!” I looked up at the rear view mirror; sure enough, Happy Hogan was smiling back at me.

“Correct me if I’m wrong,” I said with a grin. “But don’t you work for me, Happy?”

“Yes, Miss Stark,” he replied. “However, Mr. Stark does still outrank you…”

“You can’t out rank someone that doesn’t _have_ a rank.”

“Mr. Stark said he’s your father and therefore outranks you.” I considered that for a moment.

“I will concede that point.” Turning to Darcy, I raised an eyebrow. “Where are we going?”

“We’re getting you out!” Darcy replied cheerily. “There’s more to life than working for your dad, crocheting and cooking…”

“But I _like_ those things…”

“There’s still more you could be doing! Seriously, there has to be other things you like to do… we could hit a few bars, have a few beers?”

“I don’t like bars and I don’t drink.”

“Hit a club, dance?”

“I don’t dance.” Darcy stared at me, her mouth hanging open a little.

“Damn,” she replied after a moment. “What _do_ you do then?” I shrugged my shoulders.

“I work for my dad,” I told her. “I crochet, I cook… I discuss mystery novels with Steve, I help Bruce in the lab, Clint and I fire arrows at targets, Natasha throws me around a boxing ring and calls it self-defense training and occasionally Thor and I play Mario Kart.”

“That’s it?”

“Not really; sometimes I write and I like going to movies; action films mostly. I do a Relay for Life every year—I can’t always actually run it, but I always raise money—and I like to read comic books…” I thought for a moment. “I also like to ride bicycles and take walks… I used to take really long walks with my dog...”

“You had a dog?” Darcy asked. I nodded.

“Yeah, Autumn, she was a Springer Spaniel. Had her most of my life, she died when I was in my teens.” I smiled sadly, partly because I was only telling Darcy a half truth; there was a dog, a Springer named Autumn, but I honestly didn’t know what happened to her. After my house had burnt down, Autumn and another dog we had, Fuzz, disappeared from the lot where our house had once stood. My father told me that someone had come and just taken them. Years later, my younger half-sister would say that he took them to the SPCA. Knowing my father as I did, I believe he took them somewhere and shot them. I had saved a litter of Autumn’s puppies from that fate when I was in fourth grade, telling my friends of the plan within earshot of the local dog warden’s son; it wasn’t hard to believe he’d do the same to my beloved dog…

“You miss her,” Darcy said plainly. I nodded.

“Yeah… I haven’t really had a dog that was mine since. Mom had a lap dog that liked me well enough, but she wasn’t Autumn…” Darcy pulled me into a hug, which I returned. “I really do miss her.” It was silent for a moment, save for the sounds of the car. After a bit, Darcy spoke.

“Happy! Let’s go to the SPCA!”

“Right away Miss Lewis,” the driver replied. I looked at her, my eyes wide with surprise.

“Wait, what?”

“I think that’s what you need,” Darcy said. “A dog, one you can take on those walks or to dog parks…” She nodded quite definitively. “Yep, a dog is just what you need.”

Twenty minutes later, Darcy and I were walking through the dog kennels at the New York SPCA. She had called Tony while we were still in the car and informed him I was getting a dog; apparently he said fine, as long as he never had to walk it.

I strolled down the aisle between the kennels, my eyes drifting back and forth between them. While I appreciated Darcy’s eagerness to get me a dog, I honestly didn’t expect to walk out of there with a new dog that day. For one thing, I was honestly more of a cat person; Autumn was just the special exception to that. For another, I was of the firm belief that _you_ shouldn’tchoose a _pet_ ; in all actuality, your _pet_ should choose _you_.

Autumn was one of the puppies of my grandparent’s dog, Heather; when Jim and I were told we could pick a puppy out, it was after many weeks of going to visit the puppies, playing with them, and trying to decide which one to take home. We didn’t choose Autumn; Autumn chose _me_. Autumn was the one who would always come rushing over to me while the rest would be off doing something else. From the very start, she was my dog.

So when my brother chose a different puppy without me, picking a boy instead of the girl my mother insisted we get, I wasn’t going to let Autumn stay behind. Mom had given us a _pink_ harness to put on the puppy so we would know which one was ours; when no one was looking, I took the harness off the dog Jim had chosen and it put it on Autumn.

That’s why, as I continued to look at the dogs around me, I really didn’t expect to leave with one… then, I got to the last kennel and saw the dog within.

If I didn’t know better (and who knows, maybe I didn’t), I’d have thought he had been sitting there, watching me since I arrived. He (I’m just assuming it was a he) looked like a young German Shepherd, possibly a mix, no more than a few months old. He wasn’t one of those big shepherds, bred to be all bite. This, if he wasn’t a mix, was the kind of Shepherd likely bred for police work; small, sleek, _cuddly_. I had seen a dog like this in my Criminal Investigation class; one moment, he was attempting to rip a license plate off my professor’s car to get the drugs stashed behind (it was a demonstration, my professor wasn’t doing anything illegal), and the next he was snuggling against my hand, begging to be scratched behind the ears. That’s what this dog looked like.

He kept his eyes on me the entire time I stood before him. He didn’t jump around to get my attention as the rest of the dogs were doing; he didn’t need to, He already had my attention and he knew it. I knew it too; not only did he have me right where he wanted me, but somehow, as I knelt down before him, I already knew his name.

“Renner?” I asked, keeping the tone of my voice even; not too excited to get him worked up, but not too monotone to seem disinterested. His tail wagged as he tilted his head slightly to right (at which time I noticed one of his ears seemed to be injured), but he stayed sitting. “Renner?” My voice was a little more eager this time and he reacted to it, getting to his feet. “Ready to go home, Renner?” He took a step towards the kennel door, his tail wagging wildly. I knelt down in front of him, putting my hand on the wire fencing; he pawed at my hand, as if that would make the door swing open.

“Well, for goodness sakes!” The voice belonged to one of the workers who had shown Darcy and I into the kennel area. “It looks like he’s finally found a match.”

“Finally?” I asked, getting to my feet.

“We were beginning to think he wasn’t going to bond with anyone,” she replied. "He was found locked in a crate during a raid, likely meant to be a bait dog.” I shuddered at the thought of the beautiful creature as a bait dog for one trained to fight. “Poor thing didn't want to trust any of us, didn't take to anyone until now... You will be taking him, won't you?" I looked at Renner, who seemed to be asking me the same thing.

"Yes," I replied. "I'll be taking him."

After being let out of his kennel, Renner leapt into my arms and attempted to lick my face off. He stayed in my arms through the adoption process and in the car on the way to the pet store. He allowed me to put him down once I had a collar and a leash on him and walked with me as we picked out food, toys, treats and a blanket. The moment we were back in the car, however, he was back in my arms and he stayed there all the way back to Avengers Mansion.

We played in the backyard for what seemed like hours. I taught him to come when I whistled the Green Ranger’s theme (Shut up, the original Power Rangers were awesome), to sit and stay, to lie down. I would throw his ball and hide behind a tree when he went to get it, whistling to him so he could find me. When he did find me, he would drop the ball and leap into my arms, licking my face as though he hadn’t seen me in days.

Thanks to one friend, I had made another; that felt good.

“You look happier,” Darcy said when I finally sat down; she opted to relax by the pool while Renner and I did our “crazy-pants runaround thing”.

“I feel happier,” I admitted, scratching Renner behind the ears. “Thanks Darce…”

“No worries, girlfriend. You think you and Renner—I love that you named him after Jeremy Renner, by the way, oh my god the ass on that man…” She drifted off into a daydream, liking involving the actor and a private beach somewhere before getting back to what she was saying. “Will you be hitting the town more now that you have Renner?”

“I think the three of us will be.” I looked at her, grinning. “Who’s going to drag me to the fun places if you don’t come with us?” Darcy looked at me, smiling.

“Awesome.” We were silent for a moment; save for Renner, who was making happy puppy noises in my lap while I petted him. “You’re really alright though?” Darcy asked. “I mean, with everything that’s happened since you started living with Tony…”

“You know what?” I asked in reply. “At this moment? I am fine.”

And being that I’m fine? This is a good place to say goodbye. Not forever; this is in no way the end of my story, but it’s as good of a place as any to take a pause.

Until we meet again!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, I’m already plotting a sequel. You didn’t really think this was it, did you?


End file.
